MRS  AFTER  SOUL 


JOHN  O.KNOTT 


inniii 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OE  CALIEORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

Louis  Knott  Koontz 


SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 


BY 
JOHN  O.  KNOTT,  Ph.  D. 


BOSTON 
SHERMAN,    FRENCH  ^  COMPANY 

1911 


Copyright,  1911 
Sheeman,  French  &  Company 


TO 

THE  TWO  IN  MY  HOME 

TO  WHOSE  SELF-SACRIFICE  AND  THOUGHTFULNESS 

ARE  LARGELY  DUE 

MV  UNINTERRUPTED  HOURS    FOR  STUDY 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 

BY  THE  AUTHOR 


836868 


A  PERSONAL  WORD 

The  author  of  this  volume  deems  it  but  justice 
to  himself  and  to  the  reading  public  as  well,  to 
say:  There  was  no  intention  of  making  a  book 
when  the  matter  herein  contained  was  first  pre- 
pared. The  chapter  on  "The  Persistence  of 
Ideas"  is  the  essence  of  a  Thesis  presented  a 
few  years  ago  to  the  Faculty  of  Washington  and 
Lee  University  for  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Philosophy.  This,  with  the  chapters  on 
Plato,  Kant  and  Hegel  have  since  been  re- 
written and  cast  into  a  more  popular  form:  they 
are  now  published  for  the  first  time.  In  the 
meantime  the  chapters  on  Job  and  Browning  had 
been  published  in  a  somewhat  different  form  from 
that  in  which  they  now  appear,  in  the  "Metho- 
dist Review,"  Nashville,  Tcnn. 

It  was  not  easy  to  find  a  title  which  would  ade- 
quately cover  and  describe  the  varied  work  of 
this  little  volume.  Without  any  specific  inten- 
tion on  the  author's  part,  he  found  that,  while 
stressing  the  salient  doctrines  of  some  of  the  men 
who  had,  in  his  estimation,  influenced  most  the 
thought  of  the  world,  he  had  in  every  case  se- 
lected a  champion  of  Soul  as  against  Matter. 
The  men  whose  lives  and  labors  are  particularized 
in  this  book  have  been  earnest  seekers  after  that 
spiritual  Something  which  lies  back  of  mere  mat- 
ter, but  which  is  manifested  in  and  through  mat- 
ter.    They  have  been  among  the  great  assertors 


A  PERSONAL  WORD 

of  the  Soul  in  philosophy  and  poetry.  The  term 
"Soul"  is  here  used  in  the  widest  possible  sense, 
including  the  rational,  spiritual  and  immortal  in 
man  and  in  the  universe. 

The  author  has  not  concerned  himself  nmch 
about  what  is  ordinarily  termed  "originality." 
What  is  said  concerning  Plato,  Kant  and  Hegel 
has  been  drawn,  largely,  from  the  standard  His- 
tories of  Philosophy  and  from  the  published 
Lives  of  these  men.  The  brilliant  sketch  of  the 
History  of  Philosophy  forming  Ludwig  Noire's 
Introduction  to  Max  Miiller's  translation  of 
Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  has  been 
freely  used,  as  it  seemed  to  leave  nothing  want- 
ing as  a  clear  and  adequate  resume  of  the  history 
and  trend  of  thought  from  the  earliest  times  to 
the  days  of  Kant.  To  Prof.  Simon  N.  Patten's 
"Development  of  English  Thought"  is  due  a  debt 
for  a  working  basis  in  seeking  the  origin  and 
cause  of  the  particular  development  of  Ideas. 

If  the  author  may  be  allowed  to  express  what 
he  conceives  to  be  the  particular  merit  of  his 
work,  he  would  say  it  consists  mainly  in  "point  of 
view."  This,  in  more  of  detail,  in  connection  with 
the  treatment  of  the  chapters  on  Job  and  Brown- 
ing, and  in  calling  attention  to  the  Persistence 
of  Ideas  in  relation  to  the  Soul  of  Things.  The 
point  of  view  from  which  the  book  as  a  whole  s 
seen,  is  created  by  showing  a  great  heart  among 
the  Hebrews  and  another  among  the  Greeks, 
groping  in  the  same  age  for  light  on  the  subject 


A  PERSONAL  WORD 

of  Immortality,  followed  by  chapters  on  the  evo- 
lution and  trend  of  thought  bearing  on  this  and 
kindred  subjects,  till  the  poet-philosopher. 
Browning,  is  reached,  in  our  own  day,  whose 
confident  assertions  concerning  God  and  the 
Soul  serve  as  the  best  expression  of  the  thought 
of  our  age  as  well  as  of  the  fruit  of  the  world's 
thinking. 

After  what  has  just  been  said  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  add  that  the  end  at  which  the  author 
aims  is  to  be  suggestive  rather  than  to  speak 
dogmatically  on  the  great  subjects  touched  upon 
in  this  book.  Henry  Drummond  was  accustomed 
to  say  that  the.  books  which  helped  him  most 
were  the  books  with  which  he  differed  most.  The 
books  that  stir  us  either  to  meet  their  implied 
teachings,  or  that  create  in  us  a  desire  to  know 
more  of  which  the  books  themselves  give  us  but  a 
glimpse,  are  apt  to  be  ultimately  of  most  help  to 
us. 

Acknowledgment  is  hereby  made  to  Rev. 
Geo.  B.  Winton,  D.D.,  of  Ardmore,  Okla.,  for 
reading  the  proofs  of  this  volume,  and  for  many 
suggestions,  the  most  of  which  have  been  fol- 
lowed. Other  friends  have  made  the  author  their 
debtor,  but  their  names,  as  in  case  of  so  many 
of  the  world's  most  helpful  spirits,  do  not  appear 
in  the  records. 

Warrenton,  Va.  J.  0.  K. 

April,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.     Job:    The  Soul's  Pathfinder            .  1 

II.     Plato:    Intimations  of  Immortality  24 

III.  Kant:  A  Protest  against  Materialism  52 

IV.  Hegel:    Theistic  Evolution              .  94 

V.     Persistence  of  Ideas:    The  Spirit 

in  the  Trend  of  Thought   .          .  120 

VI.     Robert  Browning:  The  Subtle  As- 

sertor  of  the  Soul     .          .          .  182 


JOB:  THE  SOUL'S  PATHFINDER 

The  Book  of  Job  occupies  a  unique  place  in  the 
world's  literature.  There  is  nothing  else  just  like 
it  in  or  out  of  the  Bible.  While  the  style  is  poeti- 
cal, the  form  is  not  such  as  we  can  readily  classify. 
It  is  drama,  but  unlike  any  other  great  drama  we 
know.  It  is  tragic,  but  has  not  the  "fatal  issue" 
of  conventional  tragedy.  Though  the  book  stands 
apart,  it  has  had  great  influence  upon  both  the 
style  and  thought  of  writers  in  diff^erent  ages ; 
Goethe  is  indebted  to  it  for  the  motif  of  his 
"Faust." 

The  book  as  a  whole  makes  perhaps  the  strong- 
est appeal  to  the  heart  of  any  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writings.  Carlyle  said  it  was  "all  men's 
book."  It  has  been  the  treasure-house  from  which 
lonely  sufferers  through  the  ages  have  drawn  com- 
fort and  inspiration.  What  a  pity  such  a  piece  of 
literature  has  not  been  cast  into  better  form  than 
we  find  in  our  Authorized  Version !  Perhaps  the 
most  readable  and  understandable  of  the  many 
translations  of  Job,  at  least  for  the  general  reader, 
is  Genung's  "Epic  of  the  Inner  Life."  Hengsten- 
berg's  "Lecture  on  Job"  in  his  commentary  on 
Ecclesiastes  contains,  in  small  compass,  as  sane  an 
interpretation  of  the  book  as  one  will  find  any 
where. 

What  I  propose  in  this  chapter  is  not  a  learned 

1 


2  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

essay  on  the  age  of  the  book,  the  profundity  of  the 
themes  discussed,  or  a  criticism  of  how  far  the 
text  has  suffered  corruption.  Experts  have  al- 
ready done  much  of  all  this,  and  will  continue  to 
handle  such  details  of  technical  scholarship.  What 
is  herein  attempted  will  concern  a  viewpoint  from 
which  to  see  the  book  as  a  whole  as  to  its  purpose 
and  unity.  While  slight  reference  must  be  made 
to  the  age  of  the  book  and  to  the  character  of 
its  author,  the  more  simple  and  more  practical  as 
well  as  interesting  questions  are  these:  What  in- 
spired the  production,  and  where  should  the  em- 
phasis fall.'' 

We  may  safely  assume  that  the  Book  of  Job 
was  written  much  later  than  our  forefathers  sup- 
posed. The  subjects  discussed,  as  well  as  the 
knowledge  displayed;  the  philosophizing  tendency 
seen  throughout,  and  the  nuggets  of  wisdom 
dropped  here  and  there  indicating  the  crystalliza- 
tion of  thought ;  the  problem  especially  discussed — 
the  meaning  of  evil  as  experienced  by  the  right- 
eous ;  and  the  incidental  allusions  to  immortality 
and  such  kindred  themes — all  tend  to  prove  that 
this  book  was  written  by  a  representative  of  a  peo- 
ple that  had  already  a  history  and  a  literature. 
Poetry  is  indeed  among  the  first  forms  of  the  liter- 
ature of  a  people,  but  not  such  poetry  as  we  find 
here.  A  nation  may  have  its  legends  and  epics, 
celebrating  the  doings  of  its  heroes,  but  the  story 
of  Job  does  not  belong  to  these.  In  Greek  literature 
we  have  first  epic,  then  lyric  poetry,  and  finally 


JOB  3 

drama  in  its  various  forms,  followed  by  philoso- 
phy; but  in  the  Book  of  Job  we  have  the  epic, 
the  drama,  and  philosophy,  all  represented,  until 
it  is  difficult  to  say  which  predominates. 

Who  was  Job  ?  Probably  the  writer  himself  was 
the  real  Sufferer,  while  the  traditional  Job  was  a 
convenient  personality  for  the  writer  to  use  to 
make  known  his  experience  as  well  as  enforce  the 
principles  he  would  enunciate.  Not  that  the  writer 
of  this  book  actually  endured  the  peculiar  tribula- 
tions the  traditional  Job  experienced ;  but  a  man  at 
some  point  in  later  Jewish  history,  in  the  midst  of 
great  national  and  personal  afflictions,  had  his 
heart  turned  to  the  story  of  the  Job  of  tradition 
and  found  in  him  a  character  suited  to  his  purpose 
for  such  a  book  as  he  would  write.  That  such  a 
man  as  Job  might  have  lived  and  been  known  far 
and  wide  as  a  person  of  unparalleled  afflictions,  is 
quite  easy  to  believe.  That  his  experience  was  pro- 
verbially alluded  to  by  the  Jews  is  practically 
demonstrated  by  Ezekiel's  reference  to  him.  But 
the  name,  signifying  "Sufferer,"  gives  more 
than  a  hint  as  to  how  we  may  regard  this  re- 
markable personality.  In  the  case  of  "Malachi," 
we  can  regard  the  name  as  one  borne  by  the  pro- 
phet, or  take  it  as  meaning  "My  Messenger" — ^the 
more  reasonable  interpretation — and  leave  the 
name  of  the  prophet  unknown ;  so  in  the  case  of 
Job,  the  name  and  "Sufferer"  may  have  meant  one 
and  the  same  to  the  Jews.  Or  if  some  such  history 
had  grown  up  about  this  character  as  was,  in  its. 


4  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

way,  associated  with  the  mythical  King  Arthur, 
how  natural  to  use  the  name  and  history  to  tell  a 
story  which  the  world  has  read  with  such  response 
as  it  could  give  only  to  a  story  true  to  human  ex- 
perience and  inspired  of  the  Spirit  in  its  revela- 
tions! Singular  indeed  that  men  should  concern 
themselves  more  about  a  hteral  Jonah,  and  espe- 
cially about  the  particulars  of  his  life  in  the 
whale's  belly,  than  about  the  principle  the  story 
was  given  to  enforce!  Is  it  of  any  great  moment 
whether  there  was  an  historical  "Samaritan"  who 
relieved  the  wounded  man  on  the  Jericho  road?  We 
know  the  underlying  truth  has  been  often  exem- 
plified. So  our  belief  or  disbelief  in  the  historicity 
of  the  man  Job  is  not  the  great  concern  in  our  in- 
terpretation of  the  book,  but  how  far  we  catch 
the  import  of  the  grave  questions  which  the  book 
discusses.  Drop  out  mythical  King  Arthur,  yet 
we  have  in  the  "Idyls  of  the  King"  one  of  the  most 
powerful  pronouncements  on  Sense  and  Soul  that 
any  language  contains. 

The  mention  of  Tennyson's  "Idyls  of  the 
King"  leads  to  the  suggestion  that  the  Book  of 
Job  bears  a  relationship  to  "In  Memoriam,"  which 
has  been,  so  far  as  I  know,  overlooked.  In  making 
a  comparison  of  the  two  productions,  we  gain  a 
point  of  view  from  which  I  conceive  the  Book  of 
Job  can  be  seen  in  its  development.  Not  that  the 
English  poet  had  in  thought  the  Hebrew  writer 
when  he  gave  us  his  evolution  of  sorrow  as  well  as 
its  analysis ;  but  because  affliction  as  experienced 


JOB  5 

by  different  souls  will  take  much  the  same  form 
and  in  its  development  will  follow  in  any  age  much 
the  same  course,  we  have  this  interesting  parallel. 
Tennyson's  poem  was  born,  as  all  know,  of  a 
crushing  sorrow.  Arthur  Hallam's  death  was  the 
occasion  of  its  being  written,  but  the  moving  cause 
was  to  ease  the  poet's  heart: 

For  the  unquiet  heart  and  brain, 
A  use  in  measured  language  lies; 

and  so  to  wrap  himself  in  words,  "as  in  coarsest 
cloth  against  the  cold,"  he  sets  about  to  write. 
Whether  men  who  write  "under  inspiration"  know 
at  the  time  the  full  import  of  their  attempts,  and 
the  use  the  world  will  make  of  them,  is  doubtful. 
It  is  no  reflection  upon  the  author  of  the  Book  of 
Job,  or  upon  Paul  the  apostle,  to  say  that  the 
books  written  by  both  were  afterwards  used  by  the 
world  in  ways  far  and  beyond  what  their  authors 
dreamed.  We  can  well  understand  how  an  ancient 
Hebrew  writer,  convinced  that  he  has  found  the 
true  secret  of  affliction,  pours  out  his  utterances  in 
"measured  language,"  using  different  characters 
to  typify  different  phases  of  one  and  the  same 
error,  while  the  hero,  Job,  moving  in  a  much 
higher  realm,  resists  them,  though  he  is  unable  to 
find  the  whole  truth  till  God  appears,  when  all  is 
made  plain.  We  can  understand  how  the  author's 
heart  was  eased  in  writing  this  book,  and  how  with 
confidence  he  committed  it  to  the  world — feeling 
that  it  contained  the  truth,  yet  not  realizing  that 


6  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

he  had  written  something  which  many  capable  of 
judging  declare  is  the  noblest  of  all  Old  Testa- 
ment books. 

In  the  development  of  thought  both  in  the  Book 
of  Job  and  in  the  "In  Memoriam,"  we  meet  at  the 
first  conventional  comforters.  Tennyson  says 
friends  came  to  him  to  say  "loss  was  common;" 
that  "other  friends  remained" — and  with  such 
well-worn  phrases  showed  how  far  they  were  from 
appreciating  his  grief,  and  how  inadequate  were 
their  attempts  to  comfort  him.  Their  words  rather 
embittered  than  consoled,  and  certain  parts  of  the 
English  poet's  work  sounds  much  like  Job's  chal- 
lenge of  the  Almighty  as  to  why  such  suffering  as 
his  was  ever  permitted. 

Both  poems  have  a  decided  turning  point,  and  it 
is  where  the  consciousness  comes  to  each  man  that 
human  help  is  vain,  and  that  the  problem  must  be 
worked  out  by  the  sufferer  alone,  relying  upon  God 
to  aid  him.  Even  further  than  this  we  can  push 
our  parallel.  We  see  in  "In  Memoriam"  an  inti- 
mation of  a  better  mind  when  the  poet  says : 

I  hold  it  true,  whate'er  befall ; 

I  feel  it  when  I  sorrow  most; 

'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 

With  this  intimation  of  coming  light,  we  follow 
the  development  of  thought  till  the  writer  becomes 
prophetic,  suggesting  Browning  in  his  glad  and 
bright  outlook : 


JOB  7 

O,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 

Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood ; 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void. 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete. 

We  feel  sure  that  after  this  sentiment  Tenny- 
son will  come  into  the  full  light;  and  he  does. 
He  finally  comes  to  find  his  loved  Arthur  "on  the 
rolling  air"  and  "in  the  rising  sun" :  he  feels  him 
"in  each  star  and  flower,"  as  a  power  diffused,  yet 
as  a  personality  loved  not  less  but  more.  Then  as 
the  light  of  morning  breaks  into  the  flood  of  day, 
God's  great  purpose  is  seen,  and  firm  belief  in  im- 
mortality swallows  up  the  poet's  grief.  The  close 
of  the  poem  is  one  glad  song  of  faith  and  praise. 

In  the  Book  of  Job,  long  ere  we  find  the  patri- 
arch boldly  asserting  his  faith  that  God  will  ap- 
pear to  vindicate  him,  we  see  intimations  of  "turn" 
in  thought.  We  see  the  last  cable  cut  that  binds 
him  to  human  aid.  We  see  him  at  first  drifting, 
till,  strengthening  himself  to  meet  the  cruel  waves, 
he  surmounts  all  successfully,  and  a  prophecy  of 
triumph  makes  us  sure  he  will  triumph,  which  he 
finally  does.  This  will  be  given  in  more  detail 
later.  Suffice  it  now  to  say  that  while  Arthur  Hal- 
lam's  death  brought,  by  regular  development,  the 
pure  but  not  over  serious  English  poet  to  earnest 
thought  and  finally  to  firm  faith  in  immortality. 


8  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

so  the  afflictions  of  Job  (call  him  the  patriarch  or 
the  author  of  the  book)  brought  him  by  the  same 
hard  but  sure  way  to  a  faith  in  God  and  God's  con- 
trol of  all  things,  till  he  could  say  with  Paul  in  the 
after  years:  "All  things  must  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God." 

With  this  parallel  in  mind,  which  by  anticipa- 
tion suggests  the  view  point  from  which  I  would 
interpret  the  Book  of  Job,  the  story  of  Job  is  in 
order. 

The  scene  opens  with  a  simple  but  beautiful 
picture  of  domestic  bliss.  The  rich  Job,  with 
every  evidence  of  favor  from  fortune,  is  neverthe- 
less pure  and  upright,  and  thus  dear  to  God.  Not 
only  is  Satan  envious  at  this,  but  professes  to  have 
no  belief  in  disinterested  goodness.  To  all  Intelli- 
gent readers  of  the  Bible  it  Is  clear  that  In  dealing 
with  the  Satan  of  Job  we  are  having  to  do  with  a 
personage  seen  through  the  medium  of  the  popular 
belief  of  the  day.  As  with  the  parable  of  the  Rich 
Man  and  Lazarus,  the  underlying  truths  are 
taught  by  means  of  coloring  suited  to  the  times. 

If  the  question  be  asked,  Why  did  God  give 
heed  to  Satan  and  allow  such  sorrows  to  come  upon 
Job  ?  The  reply  might  be  made  by  asking.  Why  did 
God  permit  Israel's  choicest  souls  to  endure  such 
afflictions  as  we  find  chronicled  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews?  On  a  grassy  lawn  at  Lexington, 
Mass.,  is  a  rude  monument  of  stone  that  marks  the 
place  where  Captain  Parker,  commanding  a  little 
band  of  Americans  in  1776,  determined  to  with- 


JOB  9 

stand  the  oncoming  British.  His  words  are  en- 
graved on  the  simple  monument :  "If  they  mean  to 
have  war,  it  might  as  well  begin  here."  The  con- 
flict was  irrepressible.  So  it  would  seem  that 
sooner  or  later  some  one  must  meet  and  success- 
fully put  to  silence  Satan's  contention,  if  for 
nothing  else,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  might  be 
misled  by  it,  that  men  are  righteous  from  desire 
to  retain  or  secure  temporal  good  from  God.  To 
demonstrate  Satan's  miscalculations,  and  incident- 
ally to  show  God's  guidance  when  everything  ap- 
pears to  be  under  Satan's  control,  the  powerful 
forces  of  evil  are  permitted  to  be  let  loose  upon 
Job. 

The  time  selected  for  the  onslaught  of  Satan  is 
the  happiest  hour  in  the  history  of  the  family — 
namely,  when  the  children  of  Job  are  celebrating 
the  birthday  of  their  oldest  brother.  There  is  no 
premonition  of  impending  danger.  We  have  seen 
at  times  a  dark  cloud  from  the  west  marching  in 
the  sky,  ominous  and  ugly,  and  pausing  on  its 
way,  due  to  contrary  winds,  suddenly  drop  near 
the  earth  and  hang  over  a  quiet  settlement  of 
happy  homes  in  a  mountain  valley,  while  from  the 
bosom  of  the  sky  came  crash  after  crash,  as  light- 
nings were  poured  forth  upon  the  earth,  till  it 
would  seem  God  himself  had  forgotten  to  protect 
His  children  from  nature's  wrathful  forces.  So  we 
find  the  disasters  in  the  case  of  Job  coming  not 
singly, 


10  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

But  as  though  they  watched  and  waited. 
Scanning  one  another's  motions; 
When  the  first  descends,  the  others 
Follow,  follow,  gathering  flock-wise. 
Till  the  air  is  dark  with  anguish. 

The  prosperous  and  God-fearing  Job  arises  in  a 
few  hours  to  find  himself  childless,  bereft  of  prop- 
erty, and  stunned  beyond  expression  at  the  pitiless 
strokes  of  the  God  whom  he  has  ever  honored. 

How  long  Satan  waited  to  make  the  second  at- 
tack is  not  told.  But  still  professing  to  believe 
that  if  Job's  body  is  tortured  and  his  life  despaired 
of,  he  will  forsake  his  faith  in  God,  the  Adversary 
receives  permission  to  let  loose  other  afflictions. 
It  is  now  well  understood  that  the  peculiar  bodily 
malady  of  Job  was  a  form  of  leprosy  which 
was  a  most  revolting  thing,  and  was  especially, 
in  that  day,  taken  as  a  sure  sign  of  God's  dis- 
pleasure. He  who  saw  that  disease,  must  be 
convinced  thereby  that  God  convicted  the  man  so 
cursed  of  unconfessed  sin.  Afflicted  with  this 
loathsome  curse,  in  spite  of  his  having  hitherto 
kept  his  integrity,  Job  goes  down  into  darkness 
with  even  his  wife  advising  him  boldly  to  assert 
that  God  had  been  unjust  to  him. 

We  come  now  to  where  the  emphasis  must  fall  in 
reading  the  Book  of  Job.  What  has  been  said  so 
far  is  but  the  framework.  The  discourses  that 
consume  most  of  the  book  occupy  much  the  same 
place  here  that  the  story  of  ^neas  occupies  in  Vir- 
gil's great  epic,  where  we  see  a  condition  created 


JOB  11 

with  purpose  to  give  the  hero  an  opportunity  to 
tell  the  story  of  the  taking  of  Troy.  So  this  He- 
brew genius,  with  an  instinct  for  a  "sympathetic" 
situation,  ingulfs  a  man  in  dire  afflictions  and  then 
calls  to  the  scene  the  wisdom  and  the  theodicy  of 
the  day,  and  allows  it  to  do  its  best  to  solve  the 
problem  as  to  the  meaning  of  suffering  like  this. 
Well  may  we  imagine  the  pecuhar  satisfaction  the 
author  of  this  great  poem  had  in  doing  what 
Dante  afterwards  did  when  the  Italian  poet  placed 
some  Florentines  in  hell  that  he  might  show  to 
mankind  how  superficial,  if  not  positively  culpable, 
was  the  spirit  that  assumed  to  judge  men  and  mor- 
als in  that  day !  Who  can  doubt  that  Eliphaz, 
Bildad,  and  Zophar  were  but  convenient  names  to 
impersonate  certain  doctors  of  the  law  and  prod- 
igies of  wisdom  in  the  author's  day — men  from 
whom  he  had  suffered  much,  but  who,  like  incom- 
petent physicians,  aggravated  rather  than  healed 
his  wounds?  What  a  stroke  of  art  to  place  these 
men  thus  in  the  pillory  to  be  ever  afterwards 
gazed  upon  and  laughed  at  for  their  pretensions  as 
well  as  for  their  incompetence !  Conventional  com- 
forters, they  were !  They  professed  to  be  able  to 
solve  the  mystery  of  the  ages,  as  to  why  God  per- 
mits such  suffering  as  we  see  man  enduring.  Job's 
afflictions  gave  the  coveted  opportunity,  and  they 
gladly  availed  themselves  of  it;  and  the  deliver- 
ances of  these  men,  which  consume  the  greater 
part  of  the  Book  of  Job,  make  an  open  show  of 
their  inability  to  cope  with  the  situation. 


12  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Notwithstanding  the  length  of  the  discourses  of 
Job's  friends,  as  well  as  the  number  of  them,  the 
principles  involved  are  few,  and  small  space  only 
need  be  taken  to  get  an  idea  of  their  import.  One 
can  hardly  suppose  these  men,  upon  coming  to 
visit  Job,  were  altogether  ignorant  of  the  charac- 
ter of  their  friend's  misfortunes.  But  the  sight 
which  met  their  eyes — the  utter  wretchedness,  and 
worse,  the  manifest  evidence  of  God's  displeasure 
as  shown  in  the  character  of  Job's  disease — de- 
prived them  of  speech  for  the  time.  The  "seven 
days"  silence  might  have  continued  indefinitely 
had  not  Job  broken  it.  When  he  did,  however,  the 
perplexity  of  his  friends  developed  into  amaze- 
ment. His  words  sounded  to  them  as  blasphemous. 
He  who  in  happier  days  calmly  philosophized  with 
them  on  the  wisdom  of  God  in  ruling  the  world, 
and,  it  may  be,  sympathized  to  an  extent  with  their 
notions  of  retribution,  has  now  deserted  the  time- 
worn  and  age-tried  paths  and  is  at  variance  with 
the  world's  ripest  wisdom.  Genung  has  well  said: 
"The  first  feeling  of  a  soul  plunged  thus  into  un- 
deserved misery  we  can  readily  divine — the  sense 
of  utter  bewilderment."  Doubtless  the  very  si- 
lence of  the  patriarch's  friends  had  a  significance 
he  was  quick  enough  to  perceive.  He  knew  their 
theories,  and  that  they  had  their  eyes  and  thoughts 
on  the  telltale  disease  which  had  revealed  Job's  real 
trouble.  He  saw  they  were  not  disposed  to  adjust 
their  theories  to  changed  conditions.  Something 
in  their  unsympathetic  looks  occasioned  an  out- 


JOB  13 

burst  from  him  that  is  one  of  the  most  agonizing 
cries  ever  wrung  from  mortal  lips.  His  is  the  ex- 
perience, he  says,  of  one  whose  "way  is  hid" — 
whose  sighs  and  groans  are  poured  out  in  vain. 
He  would  blot  out  the  day  upon  which  he  was 
bom,  and  gladly  be  hid  in  the  grave,  even  if  it 
meant  annihilation. 

Eliphaz,  probably  the  oldest  and  the  wisest  of 
the  three  friends,  is  first  to  speak.  He  says  with 
more  consideration  what  the  others  afterwards  say 
in  substance.  We  are  impressed  with  the  didac- 
tic style  of  the  Temanite,  and  see  through  all  he 
says  that  he  conceives  it  to  be  his  duty  to  "deal 
with"  Job,  in  order  to  bring  him  to  a  better  mind. 
The  theory  running  through  all  that  Job's 
friends  say  might  be  summed  up  thus :  If  affliction 
comes,  it  is  a  sure  sign  of  man's  sin.  If  man  will 
acknowledge  his  sin,  and  bow  submissively  to  God, 
evil  fortune  acts  as  a  corrective — as  chastisement 
— and  the  man  will  recover  his  former  prosperous 
state.  But  if  a  man  rebels,  or  fails  to  acknowledge 
that  his  affliction  comes  of  his  personal  sin,  he 
thereby  proves  he  is  far  gone  from  righteousness. 
Eliphaz  proceeds  to  reprove  Job's  unwillingness  to 
admit  and  submit.  Nothing  could  be  more  poignant 
than  his  concealed  method  of  revealing  his  mind  to 
Job: 

Bethink  thee  now:  who  that  was    guiltless  hath  per- 
ished .'' 
And  where  have  the  upright  been  cut  off? 
As  I  have  seen  —  they  that  plow  iniquity 
And  that  sow  wickedness,  reap  the  same. 


14  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

He  will  not  say  that  Job  has  been  guilty  of  sow- 
ing wickedness,  or  plowing  iniquity,  but  the  cruel 
"As  I  have  seen'*  provides  an  ambush  for  the  man 
who  would  shoot  such  a  dart. 

The  same  spirit  of  insinuation  is  seen  in  his  fur- 
ther words  concerning  the  course  Job  should  pur- 
sue. The  speaker  does  not  in  a  straightforward 
manner  tell  Job  to  make  his  peace  with  God,  but 
says: 

But  I,  I,  would  seek  unto  God, 

And  unto  the  Mightiest  would  I  commit  mj  cause. 

The  sum  of  the  entire  utterance  is :  "Your  peculiar 
afflictions  demonstrate  that  God  has  found  you  out, 
for  nothing  like  this  happens  to  perfectly  right- 
eous men.  If  I  were  in  your  place  I  would  con- 
fess my  sin,  make  reparation,  and  then  find  that 
the  very  stones  of  the  field,  as  well  as  the  beasts 
thereof,  will  be  at  peace  and  in  league  with  you: 
you  shall  go  to  your  grave  like  a  sheaf  garnered 
in  its  season."  Very  good  advice  under  some  cir- 
cumstances, and  good  for  a  "text"  when  conditions 
justify ;  but  wide  of  the  mark  in  Job's  case. 

Bildad  follows,  after  Job's  reply,  in  words  less 
conciliatory,  for  Eliphaz's  wisdom  has  not  been 
effective.  The  second  friend  indeed  hesitates  not 
to  say  what  the  other  no  doubt  felt — 

If  thy  children  have  sinned  against  Him, 
So  hath  he  given  them  over    into    the    hand  of  their 
transgression ; 


JOB  15 

which  is  to  give  utterance  to  about  as  cruel  a  sen- 
timent as  one  can  well  conceive:  "Your  children 
are  in  league  with  you  in  iniquity,  and  God  has 
first  destroyed  them  to  give  you  warning — your 
time  is  coming  next."  Alas,  that  from  the  pulpit 
we  hear  an  occasional  Bildad  expressing  himself 
thus,  to  the  confusion  of  some  poor  sorrowing 
soul! 

If  Bildad  is  rude,  Zophar  is  dogmatic.  His 
speeches  are  but  two  in  number  and  both  brief. 
His  contention  is  that  Job's  "babblings"  should  be 
put  to  silence,  and  his  assertion  of  guiltlessness 
in  God's  sight  develops  something  like  frenzy  in 
this  reverend  gentleman.  He  would  have  God  ap- 
pear, and  thus  shame  Job's  pretentiousness.  Zo- 
phar spoke  truly  as  did  the  other  friends,  save 
that  their  truth  rooted  in  untruth  kept  them  falsely 
true.  The  sequel  shows  that  when  God  did  ap- 
pear, Job  acted  much  as  Zophar  said  he  would, 
yet  Zophar's  confusion  was  much  more  than  Job's. 
A  nice  distinction  must  be  noted  here.  When  Jesus 
said,  "The  words  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are 
spirit  and  they  are  life,"  he  indicated  that  much 
concerning  God's  relation  to  man  (and  this  in- 
cludes doctrine)  cannot  be  confined  within  the 
boundaries  of  forms  to  be  repeated  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  On  the  other  hand,  to  use  a 
well-known  and  beautiful  illustration,  trust  must 
ever 

Leave  its  low-vaulted  past, 

That  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last. 


16  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Shut  it  from  heaven  by  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  it  at  length  is  full, 
Leaving  its  outgrown  shell  by   life's  unresting  sea! 
Holmes    'Chambered  Nautilus" 

Job's  friends  belonged  to  that  class  of  exas- 
perating men  who  cannot  see  what  the  philosopher 
Hegel  contended  for,  namely,  "Truth  is  made  up 
of  contradictions."  Had  Paul  been  "consistent," 
he  would  not  have  been  the  man  for  the  great  work 
to  which  God  called  him.     So  when  Zophar  says, 

O  that  God  would  speak, 
And  open  his  lips  against  thee^ 

he  is  at  once  giving  the  true  solution  to  Job's 
troubles,  and  at  the  same  time  giving  expression  to 
what  was  false  as  well  as  heartlessly  unapprecia- 
tive  of  Job's  attitude  to  God.  We  must  believe 
that  the  author  of  the  great  drama  we  are  discuss- 
ing meant  to  give  the  "friends"  credit  for  much 
sincerity.  His  particular  aim  was  to  show  the  in- 
adequateness  of  the  best  the  world  had  to  give  on 
a  subject  so  vital  to  mankind.  Incidentally  he 
would  show  how  cruel  men  become  by  being  linked 
to  mere  traditional  opinions  concerning  God's  at- 
titude to  man.  Friends  may  under  such  circum- 
stances become  positive  tormentors.  God  may  be 
caricatured  by  His  very  defenders.  Well  might  a 
prophet,  probably  living  in  the  very  age  that  pro- 
duced the  Book  of  Job,  cry  out,  "Is  there  no  balm 
in  Gilead;  is  there  no  physician  there.'"' 

Job's  replies  to  his  friends  show  how  carefully 


JOB  IT 

the  book  was  planned.  Not  till  all  have  spoken 
does  the  afflicted  man  see  the  utter  barrenness  of 
their  theories,  and  not  till  then  does  he  detect  that, 
as  physicians  in  their  diagnosis,  they  have  not  un- 
derstood his  case.  This  revelation  gives  Job  both 
comfort  and  courage.  In  the  twelfth  chapter  we 
see  the  turning  point,  where  the  sufferer  changes 
his  attitude  to  his  professed  comforters  and  says: 

Of  a  truth,  ye  are  the  people. 

And  wisdom  will  die  with  you! 

I  also  have  understanding,  as  well  as  you; 

I  am  not  inferior  to  you; 

And  who  knoweth  not  things  hke  these? 

Later  on  he  says : 

Patchers-up  of  nothings  are  ye  all. 
Would  that  ye  were  silent  altogether! 

How  plain  the  real  situation  now!  Conventional 
wisdom,  in  phrases  that  are  worn  threadbare,  is 
repeating  itself  over  and  over  in  application  to  a 
case  where  it  does  not  apply !  Verily,  the  Book  of 
Job  does  not  wholly  belong  to  the  list  of  "ancient" 
volumes ! 

Let  us  now  turn  to  what  is  the  very  heart  of  the 
book,  if  the  interpretation  I  suggest  is  the  proper 
one.  I  have  referred  to  a  comparison  between  the 
"In  Memoriam"  and  the  Book  of  Job.  Tennyson's 
liberty  as  well  as  incentive  to  think  for  himself 
came  with  his  consciousness  that  friends  could  not 
help  him.  So  we  find  Job  in  much  the  same  situa- 
tion.    And  as  the  intimation  of  a  better  mind  and 


18  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

a  more  hopeful  view  of  all  things  came  to  Tenny- 
son ere  he  prophetically  announced  his  conviction 
that  all  would  be  well,  so  in  Job  we  find  two  ex- 
pressions related  to  each  other  as  a  streak  of  day 
might  be  related  to  full  dawn.  If  we  translate 
chapter  xiv.  14  as  in  our  Authorized  Version,  the 
suggestion  made  here  as  to  its  being  a  pivotal  ex- 
pression still  abides ;  but  if  we  translate  as  Genung 
(whose  version  I  am  using  in  all  quotations),  the 
connection  appears  clearly,  while  the  translation 
itself  is  the  most  reasonable  one  I  have  seen  sug- 
gested : 

If  a  man  die — might  he  live  again, 
(Then)  All  the  days  of  my  service  would  I  wait, 
Until  my  renewal  came; 
Thou  wouldst  call,  and  I  would  answer; 
Thou  wouldst  yearn  after  the  work  of  Thy 

hands ! 
For  then  wouldst  Thou  number  my  steps. 

This  entire  passage  is  put  provisionally,  and  hints 
at  what  will  follow  in  the  development  of  Job's 
thought.  Bearing  in  mind  that  at  the  time  this 
book  was  written  the  doctrine  of  man's  living 
again  was  not  what  it  was  even  when  the  Book  of 
Daniel  was  given  to  the  world;  and  that,  further- 
more, the  individual  writer,  on  account  of  his  afflic- 
tions, may  have  had  to  do  as  many  men  to-day 
must  do — explore  for  himself  ground  that  he  had 
learned  to  believe  in  from  what  others  had  told 
him;  in  any  case,  hope  that  God  will  yet  make 
plain  what  He  had  suffered  to  come  upon  this  man, 


JOB  19 

is  beginning  to  appear  and  takes  the  form  of  a 
provisional  expression,  which  in  its  turn  promises 
something  more  decided. 

When  the  nineteenth  chapter  is  reached,  Job  has 
touched  the  bottom  of  his  despair  and  the  author 
has  half  completed  his  book.  The  well-known  "re- 
deemer" passage  marks  both  Job's  Gethsemane  and 
his  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  Is  it  fanciful  to 
suggest  that  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job  would 
have  us  learn  through  the  development  of  this  re- 
markable character  that  men  grow  prophetic  when 
the  hours  are  darkest.''  When  flesh  and  heart  fail, 
and  human  aid  has  long  since  shown  that  its  arms 
are  too  short  to  be  of  avail ;  when  the  world's  best 
wisdom  cannot  discern  our  real  state,  much  less 
guide  our  steps ;  when,  if  there  be  a  God,  He  must, 
as  He  did  in  case  of  enslaved  Israel,  appear  to 
champion  the  cause  of  the  oppressed, — is  it  too 
much  to  say  this  Hebrew  poet  would  here  enforce 
the  well-known  formula  by  a  vivid  illustration  that 
"man's  extremity  is  God's  opportunity".''  Job's 
provisional  and  hesitating  expression  now  gives 
place  to  a  firm  conviction  that  God  will  appear  to 
vindicate  him.  We  simply  must  believe  that  our  1611 
translators  have  read  into  Job  xix.  25  a  meaning 
that  while  at  this  day  it  is  literally  true,  as  a  state- 
ment of  doctrine,  and  will  ever  be  sacred  to  us  in 
its  present  form,  is  not  a  faithful  rendering  of 
Job's  words.  Perhaps  the  text  has  been  tampered 
with,  as  many  proofs  indicate.  Our  Authorized 
Version  has  inserted  Italics  to  fill  in  the  gaps,  both 


20  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

to  give  any  meaning  at  all  to  the  passage  and  to 
make  it  say  what  the  translators  wished  it  to  say. 
Witness  the  rendering  of  LXX.  if  one  would  see 
how  remote  from  what  we  take  the  words  to  mean 
this  translation  puts  us :  "I  know  that  he  is  eternal 
who  is  about  to  deliver  me,  and  to  raise  up  upon  the 
earth  my  skin  that  endures  these  afflictions ;  for 
these  things  have  been  accomplished  to  me  of  the 
Lord,  which  I  am  conscious  of  in  myself,  which 
mine  eye  hath  seen,  and  not  another,  but  all  have 
been  fulfilled  to  me  in  my  bosom."  One  can  almost 
safely  say  that  only  a  biblical  reader  with  a  keen 
eye  would  recognize  in  this  translation  the  hallowed 
words  used  in  our  Burial  Service !  And  yet  this 
very  translation — from  the  version  used  most  by 
the  apostles  of  Christ — contains,  though  in  awk- 
ward phraseology,  what  Job  really  meant  to  say. 
At  least,  we  see  here  a  key  to  an  interpretation 
which  puts  us  in  position  to  see  the  Book  of  Job  in 
its  unity  and  development. 

Surely  the  writer  of  the  book  knew  where  he 
would  carry  his  hero  and  through  what  way.  The 
final  expression,  "Now  mine  eye  seeth  Thee," 
which  he  makes  Job  say  in  ecstasy  at  the  close  of 
the  book,  was  not  an  afterthought  of  the  writer. 
A  glimpse  of  the  truth,  as  seen  in  chapter  xiv.,  is 
followed  by  a  firm  conviction  that  God  will  come 
to  the  rescue;  and  that  conviction  is  so  decided, 
the  sufferer  would  have  his  words  inscribed  by  an 
iron  pen  on  a  rock.  The  prophecy  of  God's  com- 
ing to  vindicate  eventuates  in  His  actual  manifesta- 


JOB  21 

tion.  Shall  we  then  translate  the  "redeemer"  pas- 
sage as  referring  to  Job's  belief  in  the  resurrec- 
tion, or  perhaps  his  conviction  that  somewhere 
"out  of  his  flesh"  he  would  see  God?  He  saw  God 
in  his  flesh.  Why  not  so  translate  it?  Granted 
that  in  prophecy  a  man  is  speaking  words  whose 
meaning  is  more  or  less  obscure,  but  as  we  here 
see  the  different  steps  in  the  development  of  Job's 
confidence,  we  can  easily  believe  that  all  these 
steps  had  reference  to  the  glorious  consummation 
of  the  book — the  sight  of  God  and  Job's  conse- 
quent vindication.  Samuel  Wesley  on  his  death- 
bed put  his  hand  on  his  son  Charles  and  spoke 
truly  of  a  revival  that  would  come  to  the  Church 
in  England.  Intuitions  to  serious  and  spiritual 
people  are  of  the  nature  of  prophecy.  The  writer 
of  this  Hebrew  drama  knew  this,  and  makes  Job 
speak  of  coming  events,  whose  shadows  were  even 
at  the  time  being  cast  before. 

With  translation  upon  translation  before  me 
from  different  scholars,  and  after  having  studied 
with  experts  the  original,  I  would  not  pretend  to 
give  another,  but  embodying  several  of  them,  give 
a  suggestion  as  to  the  probable  meaning  of  this 
famous  passage  that  speaks  of  Job's  coming  deliv- 
erance. And  while  what  follows  is  rather  a  para- 
phrase, it  embodies  ideas  suggested  particularly  in 
the  LXX.,  the  translations  of  Genung  and  David- 
son, and  especially  the  renderings  suggested  in 
their  notes  on  the  text  in  question:  "I  know  that 
my  Advocate — Avenger — liveth,  and  that  sooner 


22  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

or  later  He  will  stand  at  my  side ;  and  though  this 
disease  has  destroyed  my  very  skin,  yet  in  my 
flesh  I  shall  see  God,  whom  mine  eyes  shall  behold 
— a  stranger  no  more." 

The  unity  of  the  Book  of  Job,  then,  is  seen  in 
its  plunging  a  man  into  such  peculiar  afflictions  as 
become  unfathomable  to  the  theodicy  of  the 
tvriter's  day.  A  man  thus  cut  oif  from  human  aid 
and  wisdom  seeks  a  solution  of  the  mystery  as  to 
why  God  permits  such  things.  The  doctrine  of 
God's  care  for  His  children,  and  consequently  an 
assurance  that  if  God  cares,  God  will  not  destroy, 
is  developed  till  it  asserts  that  He  will  appear  to 
vindicate  His  faithful  ones,  here  or  hereafter — ex- 
pressed purposely  by  the  author  in  obscure 
phraseology.  But  God  does  actually  appear  in 
the  story,  which  makes  us  incline  to  the  belief  that 
the  author  meant  that  we  take  Job's  utterance  as 
referring  to  such  a  manifestation  of  the  Advocate 
while  Job  was  in  the  flesh.  Or,  more  to  the  point, 
that  whatever  his  "Job"  was  made  to  say,  the 
author  of  the  book  intended  that  his  prophecy 
should  be  fulfilled  actually  and  literally  while  Job 
was  yet  alive. 

I  have  purposely  omitted  to  speak  of  Elihu; 
yet,  whatever  is  made  of  his  place  in  the  book,  the 
unity  of  the  same  is  not  affected — at  least  as  far 
as  I  have  seen  any  characterization  of  the  man  and 
his  place. 

A  very  suggestive  fact  yet  remains  to  be  noticed, 
namely :  the  appearance  of  the  Lord  to  Job  does 


JOB  23 

not  carry  with  it  any  explanation  of  Job's  calam- 
ities. Does  not  the  author  of  our  book  mean  to 
tell  us  that  God  does  not  explain  His  purpose  in 
His  dealings  with  us?  What  He  does  we  often 
know  not  now.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  God  sees  and 
knows  all.  And  most  beautifully  and  faithfully  is 
the  truth  brought  out  in  the  humility  and  submis- 
sion of  Job  ere  God  has  healed  his  leprosy  or  re- 
stored to  him  anything  he  has  lost.  Here  is  the 
answer  to  Satan:  Give  a  good  man  the  vision  of 
God,  and  he  is  content  to  suffer  arid  to  wait.  Per- 
haps the  gladdest  day  of  Job's  life  up  till  then 
was  when  God  appeared,  and  while  the  loathsome 
disease  was  still  upon  him,  he  yet  could  say:  "I 
know  that  Thou  canst  do  everything,  and  that  no 
thought  can  be  withholden  from  Thee." 


II 

PLATO :  INTIMATIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Lake  Geneva,  to  appearance,  is  the  source  of 
the  Rhone  river.  Further  observation,  however, 
reveals  that  the  Rhone  enters  the  lake  at  its  ex- 
treme east  and  flows  like  a  tide  to  the  opposite  end. 
Other  mountain  torrents  also,  whose  beginnings 
must  be  sought  far  back  in  the  snow-clad  peaks 
of  western  Switzerland,  contribute  their  share 
towards  making  the  lake  a  huge  reservoir,  which 
in  turn  receives  these  streams,  unifies  and  purifies 
their  turbid  waters — then  sends  them  forth  in  a 
river  so  clear  and  invigorating  that  the  new  Rhone 
gushing  out  at  the  west  of  Lake  Geneva  has  little 
in  common  with  the  muddy  torrent  of  the  same 
name  which  entered  the  lake  at  the  east. 

This,  in  figure,  illustrates  to  some  degree  the 
place  and  influence  of  Plato  in  philosophy.  He 
seems  at  first  to  be  the  fountain-head  of  philoso- 
phy. We  soon  discover,  however,  not  only  the 
Socratic  spirit  which  like  a  tide  flows  through  all 
Platonic  writings,  but  we  see  furthermore  that 
Plato  has  become  a  receptacle  as  well  as  trans- 
former of  all  the  streams  of  philosophic  thought 
before  him — even  those  whose  beginnings  are  to 
be  traced  to  the  far  east.  In  him  they  meet,  are 
purified,  and  finally  go  forth  from  him  as  a  majes- 
tic river  to  enrich  the  world. 

£4 


PLATO  25 

PLATO,  THE   MAN 

Plato  came  of  noble  ancestors.  On  his  father's 
side  he  had  the  blood  of  Codnis  in  his  veins ;  on  his 
mother's,  that  of  Solon.  Such  a  man  might  ap- 
propriately be  the  author  of  the  Republic  and  the 
Laws,  as  well  as  be  regarded  one  of  the  most 
kingly  of  men. 

As  far  as  dates  and  places  can  in  his  case  be  re- 
lied upon,  his  birth  year  was  427  B.  C,  at  Athens. 
He  died  in  his  eighty-first  year,  having  been  an  au- 
thor for  fifty  years. 

Plato  was  by  inheritance  an  aristocrat  and  by 
taste  and  tendency  an  artist  and  poet.  If  he  was 
austere,  or  as  G.  H.  Lewes  says,  really  melancholy, 
this  came  of  a  richly  sensuous  nature  chastened  by 
culture.  His  connection  with  Socrates  began  in  his 
twentieth  year,  and  for  eight  or  ten  years  Plato 
was  to  Socrates  what  John  the  beloved  disciple  was 
to  Jesus.  Indeed  there  is  a  fascinating  parallel 
just  here,  both  in  the  temperaments  of  the  two  dis- 
ciples and  in  their  methods  of  giving  to  the  world 
the  thoughts  of  their  respective  teachers.  If  John 
was  the  eagle-eyed,  no  less  was  Plato.  If  one  was 
a  mystic,  so  was  the  other.  But  when  we  read  the 
writings  of  the  two  men  we  are  struck  with  the 
fact  common  to  both,  viz.,  that  they  cared  much 
more  for  the  spirit  than  for  the  letter  of  the  teach- 
ing of  their  masters.  The  world  will  never  know 
when  Plato  is  quoting  Socrates,  and  when  he  is: 
putting  Socrates'  thought  in  Plato's  own  words ;, 
just  as  we  do  not  know  where  to  draw  the  line  be- 


26  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

tween  the  direct  utterances  of  Jesus  and  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  uttered  forth  in  the  words  of  John  him- 
self. 

At  the  death  of  Socrates,  whose  tragic  end  would 
have  sobered  a  far  less  sensitive  man,  Plato  seems 
to  have  withdrawn  to  Magara,  in  order  perhaps 
to  escape  persecution  and  possibly  to  continue 
his  philosophic  studies  under  Euclides.  After  a 
short  stay  there,  he  is  supposed  to  have  journeyed 
to  Egypt  and  Cyrene.  Upon  returning  to  Athens 
he  engaged  in  teaching  and  writing  to  some  extent, 
and  again  set  forth  on  one  of  his  many  journeys, 
this  time  to  Lower  Italy  and  Sicily. 

Many  who  have  written  "lives"  of  Plato  or  com- 
mented at  length  on  his  works,  have  delighted  to 
discover  how  each  visit  made  its  particular  impres- 
sion on  the  philosopher,  and  some  have  pretended 
to  classify  his  works  according  to  the  schedule  of 
his  travels.  All  we  can  be  sure  of  as  to  the  influ- 
ence of  these  various  tours  abroad  is  that  Plato 
was  certainly  broadened  by  them,  and  that  they 
did  have  a  tendency  to  correct  the  philosopher  in 
regard  to  some  of  his  extreme  positions.  Aristotle 
is  our  authority  for  asserting  that  Plato  from  his 
youth  had  been  acquainted  with  Cratylus  and  the 
opinions  of  Haraclitus ;  but  that  his  contact  with 
"Italic"  philosophy  (by  which  term  Aristotle  has 
reference  to  the  Pythagorean  and  Eleatic  schools) 
had  considerably  modified  his  views. 

At  the  age  of  forty-five  or  thereabout  Plato 
took  up  his   permanent    residence  in    his   native 


PLATO  27 

city,  and  consecrated  the  now  famous  public 
garden,  the  "Academia,"  to  the  study  of  philoso- 
phy. Authorities  differ  as  to  whether  the  Acad- 
emy represented  hard  thinking,  or  whether  the 
way  of  learning  was  made  a  flowery  path.  Ritter 
says  the  school  was  the  meeting  place  of  "the 
higher  classes  who  had  no  other  object  than  to 
enhance  the  enjoyment  of  their  privileges  and 
wealth."  Others  think  the  master's  lectures  de- 
manded great  power  of  abstraction  and  were  really 
severe  exercises  in  dialectics.  It  is  agreed  that  he 
taught  gratuitously  and  that  even  women  in  dis- 
guise attended  his  lectures.  Not  all  will  agree  with 
Lewes  in  saying,  "he  had  many  admirers  but 
scarcely  any  friends."  We  had  rather  take  the 
view  of  Zeller  who  pictures  him  as  "an  ideal  intel- 
lect, developed  into  moral  beauty  in  harmonious 
equipoise  of  all  its  powers,  and  elevated  in  Olym- 
pian cheerfulness  above  change  and  decay." 

Plato's  writings 

The  Platonic  writings  have  come  down  to  us 
practically  in  their  integrity.  We  may  have 
more  than  Plato  wrote,  but  it  is  not  probable  that 
anything  of  note  which  was  his  has  been  lost.  His 
writings  are  all  in  the  form  of  dialogues,  some 
more  dramatic  than  others.  Jowett  says  that  as 
the  metaphysical  interest  increases  the  dramatic 
power  diminishes.     This  would  be  natural. 

It  is  possible  that  we  have  a  hint  in  Phaedrus 
with  which  to  reply  to  the  question.  Why  did  Plato 


28  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

write  in  dialogue?  He  says  there  that  writing  is 
like  painting;  if  you.  ask  either  a  question  they 
preserve  silence ;  if  you  interrogate  they  have  only 
their  first  answer  to  give.  Plato  had  seen  and  felt 
the  immense  influence  of  Socrates  and  had  been  con- 
vinced of  the  superiority  of  conversation  over 
reading,  both  because  the  mind  is  more  or  less  pas- 
sive in  reading,  and  because  the  listener  in  conver- 
sation has  a  chance  to  have  the  truth  put  in  other 
forms  by  requesting  it.  In  addition  to  this,  Soc- 
rates' method,  which  Plato  strictly  adheres  to,  was 
that  of  leading  his  disciples  out  of  the  labyrinths 
of  confused  mental  states  into  the  region  of  clear 
thinking  by  question  and  definition.  Plato,  no 
doubt,  saw  that  the  best  substitute  for  this  sort  of 
conversation  was  the  dialogue,  where  the  writer 
could  anticipate  and  answer  the  questions  of  the 
reader. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  classify 
Plato's  writings,  yet  hardly  any  two  agree  upon 
a  basis  upon  which  to  work.  For  ordinary  pur- 
poses the  reader  of  Plato  receives  more  satisfac- 
tion from  knowing  that  of  the  most  famous  dia- 
logues, the  Republic  discusses  the  ideal  State  with 
reference  especially  to  its  realizing  Justice;  the 
Symposium  discusses  philosophic  Love ;  the  Phae- 
drus  discusses  true  and  false  Rhetoric ;  the  Protag- 
oras, the  Socratic  view  of  Virtue;  the  Timaeus, 
the  Origin  of  the  world ;  the  Theaetetus,  the  most 
metaphysical  of  all  the  dialogues,  discusses  Theo- 
ries of  Knowledge ;  Phaedo,  the  Immortality  of  the 
Soul. 


PLATO  29 

If  one  would  select  famous  or  beautiful  passages 
from  Plato's  works,  or  attempt  to  stress  certain 
dialogues  as  representing  the  Platonic  doctrine  in 
its  essence,  quite  a  book  would  result.  No  one  be- 
gins to  read  the  Apology  or  Phaedo  without  com- 
pleting them — they  are  short  and  exceptionally 
beautiful.  Everybody  who  is  at  all  familiar  with 
Plato  knows  the  famous  seventh  chapter  of  the  Re- 
public, containing  as  it  does  the  figure  of  the  Men 
in  the  Cave,  and  illustrating  the  author's  peculiar 
doctrines  better  than  perhaps  any  one  image  he 
uses.  The  Phaedrus  contains  the  prayer  of  Soc- 
rates to  the  god  Pan,  as  well  as  the  myth  of  the 
Chariot  of  the  Soul.  Theaetetus  gives  us  the  oft- 
quoted  image  of  the  Mid-wife,  to  which  Socrates 
likened  himself,  and  also  the  figure  of  the  Caged 
Birds.  In  Timaeus  we  have  the  myth  of  The  Cre- 
ation of  Man ;  in  Critias,  that  of  The  Island  of  At- 
lantis, and  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Republic,  The 
Story  of  Er. 

For  his  peculiar  Doctrine  of  Ideas  the  reader 
must  take  Plato  as  a  whole,  for  this  doctrine  per- 
meates all  he  wrote,  yet  we  might  specify  particu- 
larly Phaedo,  the  Symposium,  certain  books  of  the 
Republic  and  above  all  Phaedrus.  Of  all  the  dia- 
logues perhaps  the  Republic  is  the  most  finished 
and  the  most  famous. 

PLATO  AND  PRE-SOCBATIC  PHILOSOPHY 

In  speaking  of  the  influence  of  pre-Socratic 
thought  on  Plato  we  take  up  the  schools  of  phil- 


30  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

osophy  not  in  their  chronological  order,  but  in  the 
order  in  which  they  affected  Plato.  It  has  been 
already  intimated  at  the  opening  of  this  chapter, 
that  Plato  was  a  kind  of  reservoir  for  all  the 
streams  of  thought  before  him.  Now  it  may  be 
asked:  In  what  order  did  they  flow  into  him.'' 

We  know  that  Cratylus  was  Plato's  teacher  be- 
fore the  latter  came  under  the  influence  of  Socra- 
tes ;  and  Cratylus  was  to  an  extent,  at  least,  a 
Heraclitan.  Aristotle  tells  us  that  Plato  was 
familiar  with  Heraclitus  from  his  youth.  We  know 
he  never  fully  freed  himself  from  Heraclitan  influ- 
ence, as  his  dialogues  testify.  We  have  here  there- 
fore, it  would  seem,  the  first  decided  influence  on 
our  philosopher. 

Heraclitus,  an  Ephesian  and  contemporary  with 
Parmenides,  belongs  to  that  class  of  philosophers 
known  as  Physicists.  He  flourished  about  the 
close  of  the  sixth  century,  B.  C,  and  made  a  pro- 
found impression  on  Greek  thought.  He  regarded 
the  world  of  sense  as  a  perpetual  delusion ;  what 
we  perceive  is  simply  phenomena.  Man  has  no 
certain  knowledge,  but  God  has ;  but  as  human  in- 
telligence is  but  a  portion  of  the  Universal  Intelli- 
gence, it  follows  that  it  must  ever  be  imperfect,  yet 
humanity  as  a  whole  approximates  the  truth  more 
nearly  than  does  any  individual  man.  Man  is  both 
right  and  wrong  in  his  affirmations — for  truth  is 
known  but  in  part.  Hegel's  doctrine,  "Being  and 
Not-being  is  the  same"  is  Heraclitan.  Perhaps 
the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus  is  best  known  by  the 


PLATO  31 

phrase  "perpetual  flux."  As  the  principle  of  all 
things  was  conceived  to  be  Fire — in  the  sense  of 
Warmth  or  Ether, — the  visible  things  of  creation 
were  in  a  perpetual  change  from  this  to  some  other 
form  of  this  underlying  principle  or  element,  and 
then  again  to  their  original  form.  We  never  cross 
the  same  river  twice;  nothing  is  abiding,  but  all 
things  may  be  characterized  as  Becoming.  The 
doctrine  of  Heraclitus  stands  in  marked  contrast 
with  that  of  the  Eleatics,  best  represented  by  Par- 
menides,  who  taught  that  our  senses  deceive  us 
when  they  represent  everything  as  changing.  The 
Eleatics  were  apostles  of  Stability :  Heraclitus  and 
his  school,  of  Change.  Plato  knew  of  both  these 
schools,  and  was  affected  by  both. 

Passing  for  the  moment  the  direct  influence  of 
Socrates,  which  followed  close  upon  Plato's  study 
under  Cratylus,  we  note  the  philosophy  of  the 
Eleatics  as  perhaps  next  in  order  affecting  Plato. 

The  founder  of  this  school  was  Xenophanes, 
whose  chief  tenet  was  philosophical  monotheism, 
but  a  monotheism  which  was  pantheism.  He  was 
born  about  620  B.  C.  He  taught  that  God  is 
the  one  immutable  and  immovable  Being,  but  not 
personal;  the  One  Existence  has  many  modes,  but 
these  modes  are  merely  manifestations  of  the  one 
God.  Carried  out  to  its  legitimate  end,  this  doc- 
trine, which  contrasts  sharply  with  that  of  Hera- 
clitus, teaches  that  at  least  the  central  principle 
of  the  universe  is  stable.  Parmenides,  the  illus- 
trious disciple  of  Xenophanes,  and  a  man  much 


32  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

revered  by  Plato,  taught  in  contradistinction  to 
Heraclitus,  that  change  is  a  delusion ;  that  as 
all  things  are  but  a  manifestation  of  Being  or 
God,  and  as  Being  is  unchangeable,  the  senses 
deceive  us  when  they  lead  us  to  believe  in  origin 
and  decay.  Parmenides,  who  is  well  known  to 
readers  of  Plato  because  of  the  dialogue  named 
for  him  and  because  of  his  criticisms  of  Plato's 
Doctrine  of  Ideas,  opposed  strongly  the  idea  of 
Non-being.  He  made  distinctions  between 
thoughts  derived  from  opinion  or  from  things  as 
they  seem,  and  thought  derived  from  reason — the 
latter  as  absolutely  true,  the  former  merely  illu- 
sory. As  Being  and  Thought  (reasoned  thought) 
are  identical,  Parmenides  is  in  a  sense  the  founder 
of  Idealism.  Certainly  we  see  how  he  re-appears 
in  Plato. 

Concerning  Zeno,  pupil  of  Parmenides,  and 
Gorgias,  pupil  of  Zeno,  nothing  need  be  said,  save 
that  the  first  was  the  controversialist  of  the  Ele- 
atic  school,  and  is  introduced  into  the  dialogue  of 
Parmenides  as  a  sharp  dialectician;  while,  as 
Weber  puts  it,  Gorgias'  extravagance  turned  the 
Eleatic  doctrine  to  the  Heraclitean  principle: 
Being  is  nothing.  Becoming  is  everything. 

One  more  influence  is  yet  to  be  noted  which  per- 
haps even  more  than  any  save  that  of  Socrates 
himself,  aff'ected  Plato — that  is  the  Pythagorean. 

As  this  sketch  is  not  a  history  of  philosophy,  I 
give  only  in  briefest  form  the  salient  doctrines  of 
those  who  are  supposed  to  have  been  the  intellec- 


PLATO  33 

tual  ancestors  of  Plato.  Of  the  man  Pythagoras 
little  is  known.  Zeller  puts  his  birth  at  580 
B.  C,  and  it  is  well  known  that  he  dwelt  in 
lower  Italy  and  gave  thus  to  his  philosophy  the 
name  "Italic."  How  far  he  was  acquainted  with 
the  mysteries  and  philosophical  speculations  of  the 
East  we  can  not  tell.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Pythagoras  founded  a  sort  of  philosophic 
brotherhood,  and  that  the  Pythagoreans  had  their 
peculiar  guilds  long  after  the  head  of  the  organi- 
zation died. 

The  attempt  of  the  founder  and  his  followers 
was  to  shape  human  life  in  an  orderly  and  har- 
monious manner.  Beginning  in  all  probability 
with  the  thought  of  harmony  in  tones,  they  were 
led  by  this  to  the  basis  of  Pythagorean  philosophy, 
viz.,  that  number  is  the  essence  of  things.  Their 
theory  concerning  odd  and  even  numbers  was  car- 
ried so  far  that  in  ethics  and  in  the  domain  of  rea- 
son and  intelligence,  they  did  not  hesitate  to  say: 
"Things  are  the  copies  of  number." 

Pythagoras  taught  the  eastern  doctrine  of 
transmigration  of  souls,  and  consequently  the 
soul's  pre-existence.  We  know  how  large  a  place 
this  has  in  Plato's  theorizing.  Pythagoras  said 
the  soul  was  a  nomad,  a  unit,  but  self-moved.  As 
far  as  it  was  moved  it  was  imperfect,  hence  the 
strife  to  regain  its  state  of  perfection.  The  dis- 
tinction of  the  three  powers  of  the  soul.  Reason, 
Intelligence,  Passion,  may  be  traced  to  the  Pytha- 
gorean analysis. 


34  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

How  far  did  Plato  borrow  from  this  Italian 
philosophy?  The  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the 
world  of  sense  to  ideas  is  substantially  identical 
with  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  the  relation  of 
phenomena  to  numbers.  Plato  says  things  "par- 
ticipate in  ideas" ;  Pythagoras  says,  "things  imi- 
tate numbers." 

Prof.  Ritchie  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
when  we  turn  to  the  dialogues  of  Plato  in  which 
he  seems  to  differ  most  radically  from  what  we 
know  from  Xenophon  and  Aristotle  that  Socrates 
taught,  these  are  decidedly  Pythagorean  in  their 
cast.  For  example,  Meno  contains  a  more  fully  de- 
veloped theory  of  knowledge  than  Protagoras,  but 
it  also  contains  the  doctrine  of  "recollection" — 
the  notion  of  pre-existence.  In  Gorgias  we  find 
justice  explained  in  mathematical  language; 
Phaedo  and  the  Republic  have  the  Pythagorean 
cosmology  as  the  background  of  their  visions  of 
another  life.  Ritchie  seems  to  think  that  the  Py- 
thagorean "way  of  life,"  to  which  Plato  refers, 
suggested  a  model  upon  which  the  latter  con- 
structed his  ideal  state.  In  Tvmaeus,  the  work  in 
which  Plato  elaborates  his  philosophy  of  nature, 
the  whole  discourse  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  Py- 
thagorean. 

Perhaps  the  spirit  of  the  Pythagoreans  affected 
Plato  as  much  as  any  of  the  details  of  the  system. 
The  doctrine  was  dreamy;  gave  full  sway  to  the 
imagination ;  taught  immortality,  and  hinted  at 
retribution ;   was    idealistic   in   that   mathematical 


PLATO  35 

abstractions  became  the  basis  of  things.  If  the 
ideal  triangle  or  circle  was  the  true  one  and  not 
the  triangle  or  circle  of  the  carpenter,  then  why 
is  not  the  ideal  man,  or  tree,  the  true  one,  and  not 
what  we  perceive  by  means  of  our  senses? 

When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  influence  of  Soc- 
rates upon  Plato,  we  enter  upon  groimd  that  is 
not  only  debatable  and  debated,  but  also  upon 
what  is  both  tantalizing  and  tempting.  The 
theologian  sees  in  the  debate  as  to  how  far  the 
Socrates  of  Xenophon  was  the  Socrates  of  Plato 
but  another  form  of  the  controversy  he  has  been 
familiar  with,  which  grew  out  of  the  conception 
Paul  seemed  to  have  of  Christianity  as  contrasted 
with  the  conception  which  the  evangelists,  and 
especially  the  synoptists,  received  from  Jesus. 
I  have  said  elsewhere  in  this  chapter  that  Plato 
is  like  St.  John,  in  catching  the  spirit  of  his 
Master;  he  is  also  like  Paul  in  that  he  develops 
the  thoughts  of  his  Master  to  such  propor- 
tions that  many  are  disposed  to  say  both  inter- 
preters have  misconceived  or  even  contradicted 
their  respective  originals.  It  has  been  already 
shown  that  Plato  was  affected  and  perhaps  greatly 
influenced  by  other  teachers  than  Socrates;  but 
it  seems  quite  unnecessary  to  assume  that  because 
Xenophon,  a  plain  soldier,  saw  a  much  more  sim- 
ple man  in  Socrates  than  Plato  makes  him  to  be, 
that  Xenophon's  characterization  is  the  correct 
one  and  that  Plato  has  idealized  Socrates  beyond 


36  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

all  recognition.  We  take  the  ground  here  which 
we  take  in  the  bible  controversy:  there  is  really 
no  conflict  between  the  two  pictures  drawn  of  the 
two  Teachers.  If  Mark  makes  Jesus  very  human, 
while  John,  and  especially  Paul,  show  us  the  di- 
vine almost  exclusively,  there  is  no  conflict:  Jesus 
was  both.  And  Socrates  was  a  man  so  capacious 
and  rich  as  to  have  for  Plato  what  Xenophon  did 
not  perceive. 

Aside  from  that  impalpable  thing  we  call 
"spirit,"  which  one  man  catches  from  another  and 
which  can  never  be  measured  or  defined,  and  which 
in  this  instance  must  be  given  a  very  large  place, 
— we  are  sure  that  Plato  seized  and  held  all  his 
days  to  the  Method  of  Socrates.  And  perhaps  the 
best  thing  the  great  Athenian  gave  to  the  world 
was  his  Method.  If  Socrates  seemed  to  attach 
little  value  to  the  natural  sciences,  the  probable 
reason  was  that  he  was  so  interested  in  ethics  as 
to  practically  lose  himself  in  that  study. 

As  a  basis  for  his  ethical  reforms  Socrates  took 
the  ground  that  no  man  is  voluntarily  bad;  that 
wrong-doing  is  due  to  ignorance;  that  in  conse- 
quence it  is  impossible  to  do  right  without  knowl- 
edge— hence  he  tried  to  reform  life  by  true  knowl- 
edge. 

The  step  is  but  a  small  one  to  identify  Virtue 
and  Knowledge  if  knowledge  is  sure  to  make  one 
virtuous.  But  how  is  one  to  attain  to  knowledge? 
"  Know  thyself"  is  the  motto,  but  how  realize  it.'' 
No  man  can  affirm  anything  true  about  a  subject 


PLATO  37 

until  he  has  a  concept  of  it.  He  must  know  what 
it  is  in  its  unalterable  nature.  Knowledge  must 
begin  then  in  fixing  concepts ;  but  this  led  to  com- 
parison of  mind  with  mind  by  a  common  inquiry, 
*'in  order  to  prove  himself  and  the  rest  of  world." 
Hence  the  dialectic  of  Socrates. 

Plato  practically  endorses  and  appropriates  all 
the  Socratic  method  and  belief.  When  we  pass  on 
to  the  peculiar  ideas  of  an  ideal  State,  or  when  we 
draw  out  fully  the  doctrine  of  Plato  concerning 
the  immortality  of  the  soul — how  far  we  are  Pla- 
tonizing  or  Pythagorizing  Socrates  we  shall 
never  know;  but  if  we  take  the  Apology  and 
Fhaedo  as  genuine  (and  there  is  little  to  be  said 
against  their  being  so)  then  we  see  in  Socrates  in 
germ  what  was  more  fully  developed  by  his  dis- 
ciple and  mouth-piece. 

We  may  assert  then  that  Plato  is  dogmatic 
when  he  is  standing  firm  upon  the  Socratic  method, 
from  which  he  did  not  depart;  that  when  he  is 
teaching  the  highest  morality  he  hesitates  not, 
because  he  believes  he  has  seen  the  truth  personi- 
fied in  his  great  teacher.  When  Plato  leaves  the 
reader  in  doubt  at  the  end  of  a  dialogue,  it  is 
because  he  has  learned  from  his  master  to  give 
all  sides  of  a  subject;  to  love  truth  above  rubies; 
to  make  no  dogmatic  pronouncement  where  there 
is  room  for  difference  of  opinion.  In  all  we  see 
Socrates  living  in  and  through  Plato,  and  carry- 
ing the  Socratic  spirit  into  a  new  generation. 


88  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Plato's  theoey  of  knowledge. 

What  has  been  said  up  to  this  point  has  been 
preparatory  to  a  statement  of  the  doctrines  of 
Plato;  yet  those  doctrines  have  already  been  by 
intimation  anticipated. 

Plato  was  to  some  extent  a  creature  of  his 
age;  every  man  must  be  that.  When  we  speak 
of  the  streams  of  influence  which  "made"  him 
and  attempt  to  point  them  out  as  they  are  identi- 
fied with  men  and  systems,  we  do  not  ignore  minor 
influences  which  in  their  totality  doubtless  meant 
very  much  to  our  philosopher.  For  example  the 
Sophists  had  not  only  much  to  do  with  whetting 
his  mind  to  exceptional  sharpness,  but  Socrates 
was  a  Sophist  pretty  much  in  the  sense  that  Jesus 
was  a  Pharisee;  and  Plato  held  much  in  common 
with  the  Sophists,  although  he  opposed  them  stren- 
uously. To  the  age  in  which  Plato  lived  and  the 
absence  of  formal  logic  we  must  credit  his  not  dis- 
tinguishing between  "contraries"  and  "contradic- 
tions," and  his  share  in  other  confusions  that  in 
after  days  read  like  puerilities. 

We  may  still  hold  to  our  original  figure  of 
the  lake  and  say  that  Plato  is  the  product  of 
Heraclitus,  the  Eleatic  Parmenides,  the  Pytha- 
gorean speculations,  and  his  great  teacher,  So- 
crates. The  last  is  the  predominant  influence,  and 
characterizes  the  man  as  well  as  gives  color  to 
his  whole  philosophy. 

Plato  held  with  Heraclitus  that  all  things  are 


PLATO  39 

in  a  state  of  flux,  and  that  "becoming"  character- 
izes the  things  of  sense.  But,  said  Plato,  "flux" 
applies  to  things  of  sense  only.  Parmenides  said, 
"  only  being  is,  non-being  is  not  and  cannot  be 
thought."  Being  cannot  begin  or  cease  to  be. 
Thought  also  is  not  distinct  from  being — that  is, 
thought  which  is  identified  with  the  truth.  Per- 
ception does  not  show  things  as  they  are,  and 
opinion  may  be  either  true  or  false.  The  senses 
deceive  when  they  seem  to  show  us  all  things  in 
process  of  flux.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  Par- 
menides who  had  elements  of  the  Pythagorean  doc- 
trines in  his  speculations,  would  and  did  greatly 
influence  Plato.  The  suggestion  of  "permanence," 
and  of  the  power  of  reason  to  discern  truth — 
being;  the  identification  of  thought  with  being — 
these  at  least  reappear  in  Plato  though  he  modifies 
and  selects  at  will. 

From  Socrates  Plato  imbibed  the  notion  of  an 
"  inner  sense"  by  which  we  know  the  truth ;  also 
the  theory  that  knowledge  consists  in  forming  con- 
cepts or  general  notions.  Here  also  we  find  what 
is  perhaps  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
Plato — his  method.  The  famous  dialectics,  which 
Plato  practically  identified  with  philosophy,  came 
of  the  Socratic  method. 

From  the  Pythagoreans  he  gets  a  hint  and  per- 
haps more  than  a  hint  as  to  how  geometry  may 
give  to  the  philosopher  a  key  with  which  to  un- 
lock the  treasure-house  of  the  universe.  Triangles, 
squares,  circles  are  ideal  and  intelligible  realities. 


40  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Yet  they  never  find  exact  expression  in  the  sensu- 
ous world.  The  figures  in  the  books  may  imitate 
or  in  their  measure  participate  in  the  perfect  ori- 
ginals which  exist  only  in  the  mind,  but  they  are 
only  imperfect  copies.  If  this  be  true  of  geomet- 
rical figures,  why  not  true  of  every  concept  we 
can  form — of  Man,  the  Beautiful,  the  Good.''  The 
hint  then  from  mathematics  carried  to  its  con- 
clusion, transfers  conception  from  being  a  mere 
general  notion  made  by  the  mind,  into  the  region 
of  reality,  and  then  by  one  step  further  these  con- 
cepts become  the  only  realities. 

From  Pythagoras  Plato  had  learned  (so  it  is 
supposed)  the  doctrine  of  the  pre-existence  of 
souls,  and  the  kindred  one  of  the  transmigration 
of  the  same.  With  this  as  a  clue,  Plato  bridges 
the  gulf  between  the  known  and  the  unknown.  Con- 
cepts have  become  to  him  realities — eternal  reali- 
ties ;  they  constitute  the  abiding  things  as  opposed 
to  the  flux  discerned  by  the  senses.  The  "  inner 
sense"  perceives  these  realities:  but  how.?  Simply 
enough ;  cognition  is  nothing  but  recognition.  The 
soul  (or  "  inner  sense"  we  might  say)  when  objects 
of  a  sensuous  nature  are  presented  to  our  minds 
by  means  of  the  senses,  is  provoked  to  recollection, 
and  sees  in  the  shadows  thus  presented  that  which 
it  dimly  remembers  to  have  seen  in  another  and 
higher  life.  To  the  extent  a  man  is  a  philosopher, 
which  means  all  we  would  mean  by  being  "  pure 
in  heart,"  can  he  see  the  eternal  realities  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  copies  or  shadows  of  earth. 


PLATO  41 

Myth  and  substantial  teaching  meet  here  in 
Plato  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  know  how  far  the 
philosopher  would  have  us  go  in  interpreting  him 
literally  by  his  poetical  utterances.  Certainly 
Wordsworth  has  missed  the  meaning  of  Plato  in 
his  "  Intimations  of  Immortality"  and  has  thus 
no  doubt  made  popular  an  error.  Plato  does  not 
teach  that  "  heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy," 
if  by  that  we  mean  the  child  knows  more  of  reality 
than  the  youth  or  man.  The  Platonic  teaching 
is  that  the  soul  when  it  is  first  confined  to  the 
body  is  irrational;  but  when  the  life  of  mere  sen- 
sation gives  place  to  the  life  of  thought,  then, 
under  correct  education,  the  soul  becomes  capable 
of  true  knowledge.  The  "soul's  awakening"  comes 
when  men  turn  to  philosophy  and  see  behind  the 
"many"  of  a  class  the  "one"  or  the  concept.  Plato's 
theory  of  recollection  might  be  illustrated  by  a 
vivid  dream  of  many  details  being  called  to  mind 
(after  it  had  been  quite  forgotten)  by  some  sound 
or  sight,  so  that  the  man  who  had  the  dream 
sees  indistinctly,  slowly  and  even  painfully  at  first, 
the  mere  outlines  of  what  was,  when  seen  in  the 
dream,  complete  in  all  particulars.  G.  H.  Lewes 
uses  the  illustration  of  one  reading  a  lecture  after 
having  years  before  heard  the  lecture  delivered, 
and  as  the  man  now  reads  he  recalls  here  and 
there  something  of  the  tones  of  the  speaker  and 
feels  something  of  the  thrill  he  experienced  when 
he  sat  under  the  speaker's  masterful  oratory.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that,  while  some  authorities 


42  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

ignore  the  "recollection"  theory  of  Plato  £ind 
regard  the  interpretation  usually  given  to  the 
myths  and  poetical  utterances  on  this  subject  from 
Plato  as  merely  figurative  language,  the  philo- 
sopher really  accepted  the  theory  of  the  pre-exist- 
ence  of  the  soul  as  the  true  solution  to  what  was  in 
later  days  known  as  the  presence  in  the  mind  of 
"  innate  ideas." 

The  Doctrine  of  Ideas  is  the  one  by  which  Plato 
is  best  known,  and  furnishes  a  key  to  his  theory 
of  knowledge.  The  philosopher  does  not  take 
especial  care  to  be  consistent  in  the  development 
of  his  basic  theory.  We  see  evidence  of  growth 
and  change  as  we  read  his  dialogues.  For  this 
reason  no  two  interpreters  of  Plato  agree  exactly 
on  all  points  as  to  the  Platonic  teaching  on  Ideas. 
I  am  impressed  with  an  interesting  parallel  here 
between  the  founder  of  the  Academy  and  the 
founder  of  Methodism:  the  one  in  his  theory  of 
Ideas,  and  the  other  in  his  notions  of  Christian 
Perfection.  Both  men  to  some  degree  modified 
their  first  deliverances.  In  both  instances  we  must 
search  through  an  extensive  literature  to  get  at  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  writers.  In  both  instances 
we  find  apparent  inconsistencies  and  even  contra- 
dictions. Interpreters  disagree  as  to  what  they 
did  teach,  and  what  is  remarkable  the  disputants 
in  each  instance  refer  to  the  same  deliverances 
from  their  respective  teachers  to  substantiate  the 
respective  contentions  of  today. 

What  does  Plato  mean  by  the  Idea.**     He  be- 


PLATO  43 

lieved  that  the  essence  of  things  was  in  their  form ; 
and  by  "form"  he  meant  what  approaches  as  near 
to  the  Platonic  "idea"  as  we  can  well  get.  Some 
have  suggested  the  term  "type;"  Lewes  would  use 
"noumenon,"  and  Ritchie  says  the  phrase  "law  of 
nature"  very  well  illustrates  what  he  meant. 

Plato's  meaning  is  best  compassed  perhaps  by 
giving  the  process  by  which  he  arrived  at  his 
terminology.  Wherever  a  universal  conception  of 
species  or  kind  is  found,  there  we  find  an  Idea: 
hence  Ideas  are  limited  only  by  the  number  of 
general  notions  we  can  form.  Even  non-being  is 
an  Idea  according  to  Plato. 

The  concepts  or  general  notions  of  Socrates 
were  so  far  objectified  by  Plato  that  conceptions 
become  perceptions;  he  projects  what  we  would 
call  mere  abstractions  and  they  become  images.  He 
does  what  the  manipulator  of  the  stereopticon  does 
who  takes  the  picture  in  the  machine  and  projects 
it  upon  the  canvas,  only  we  must  remember  that  in 
case  of  the  Idea  it  has  no  such  existence  as  the 
negative  has  which  the  stereopticon  enlarges ;  the 
illustration  would  be  complete  only  if  the  manipu- 
lator could  project  upon  the  canvas  in  sight  of 
spectators  his  general  notion  of  Man — the  typical 
and  perfect  Man,  and  do  it  from  out  his  own  mind. 
Plato  was  thus  the  founder  of  Realism  as  the  word 
was  used  in  Scholastic  days. 

One  of  the  most  puzzling  things  in  Plato  is 
what  he  meant  by  "Ideas  participating  in  their 
copies,"  or  better,  how  the  copies  on  earth  par- 


44  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

ticipatcd  in  the  Ideas.  This  relation  of  the 
real  to  the  phenomenal  evidently  vexed  his 
philosophic  soul.  The  men  in  the  Cave  look  at 
shadows  of  the  real  men ;  the  chained  observers 
never  see  the  men.  But  how  far  does  this  figure 
which  we  can  easily  understand,  explain  how  the 
shadows  (earthly  things)  really  participate  in  the 
eternal  and  divine  Ideas?  We  understand  how  the 
ideal  circle  is  never  copied  on  earth  and  yet  we 
can  understand  how  we  approximate  it  by  use 
of  instruments  and  by  exercising  great  care.  But 
we  are  dealing  with  "reality"  as  we  say  when  we 
make  lines ;  the  copies  of  the  heavenly  things  in 
Plato's  theory  are  at  bottom  non-being.  When 
we  come  to  speak  of  his  doctrine  of  Nature  this 
will  again  meet  us,  but  enough  is  said  to  see  the 
difficulty  in  the  way,  viz.  that  of  having  any  copies 
at  all  if  they  are  nothing  to  begin  with,  and  they 
come  of  nothing  and  amount  to  nothing.  Perhaps 
this  is  too  strong,  but  an  Aristotle  would  thus 
dispose  of  them. 

I  have  thought  that  the  theory  of  "participa- 
tion" might  be  illustrated  popularly  by  the 
process  by  which  what  is  called  a  "composite 
photograph"  is  made.  Hundreds  of  negatives 
are  selected  and  each  in  some  way  gives  to  the 
picture  the  photographer  would  make,  some 
element:  the  result  was  supposed  to  be  an  ideal 
face,  finer  than  any  of  earth  and  indeed  approach- 
ing the  face  of  Christ  in  purity.  Supposing  the 
theory  of  the  discoverers  of  this  process  to  have 


PLATO  45 

been  all  they  claimed  for  it ;  that  all  the  human 
faces  on  earth  could  be  combined  and  in  a  sense 
reproduced  in  the  ideal  face  of  the  Son  of  Man — 
we  should  have  an  approach  to  the  notion  of  Plato, 
in  that  each  individual  participated  in  the  ideal 
face;  and  though  the  ideal  face  could  not  be  re- 
produced by  any  one,  yet  some  individual  faces 
reflected  it  more  perfectly  than  others.  Many  de- 
tails of  this  illustration  fail  us,  especially  in  that 
the  multitude  which  made  up  the  ideal  face  really 
exists  separately,  which  Plato  would  not  allow. 

Another  theory  concerning  the  Ideas  which 
puzzles  the  interpreters  of  Plato  is  the  attempt 
on  the  philosopher's  part  to  make  a  hierarchy  out 
of  the  Ideas.  The  relation  existing  between  the 
highest  idea  and  the  lower  ones  is  similar  to  that 
existing  between  the  things  of  sense  and  ideas. 
The  Highest  Idea,  if  we  interpret  Plato  aright,  is 
identified  with  the  Absolute,  the  Good,  or  God 
Himself.  Here  we  can  only  surmise  whether  Plato 
really  believed  in  One,  Personal  God,  and  wrote 
other  things  in  deference  to  the  theological  ideas  of 
his  day ;  or  whether  he  ever  really  raised  the 
question  of  the  Highest  Idea  being  one  with  a 
Personal  God. 

Certainly  we  can  not  take  the  myth  of  the 
*'  Chariot  of  the  Soul"  in  Phaedrus  to  moan  that 
Plato  thought  there  was  a  definite  place,  a  "heaven" 
for  Ideas,  where  they  had  their  abode.  Ideas  ac- 
cording to  Plato  dwelt  not  in  space,  nor  could 
you  say  they  had  a  dwelling  outside  of  intelli- 
gence. 


46  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Plato's  physics 

Plato's  Physics  is  largely  Pythagorean  and  is 
made  up,  to  a  great  extent,  of  conjecture.  This 
department  was  not  his  forte.  His  great  disciple 
Aristotle  we  shall  find  emphasized  what  the  "divine 
Plato"  did  not  feel  much  interest  in. 

To  give  in  brief  Plato's  theory  of  Nature:  He 
called  the  formless  something  out  of  which  came 
what  we  call  "matter,"  non-being,  and  identified 
it  with  what  we  should  denominate  "space."  The 
world  originated  from  the  Creator  after  the  model 
of  an  immovable  and  perfect  archetypal  world. 
The  world-soul  is  the  link  between  the  formless 
matter  or  non-being  and  the  Deity.  The  world 
is  as  perfect  as  stupid  and  untractable  matter  will 
admit;  but  matter  is  essentially  evil.  The  stars  are 
heavenly  intelligences  and  the  earth  immovable  as 
the  center  of  the  universe. 

The  soul  may  be  considered  under  the  head  of 
Physics  according  to  Plato.  The  soul  consists 
of  the  soul  proper,  which  is  the  divine  principle 
or  reason ;  and  the  appetitive  principle  which  is 
perishable.  Between  the  two  as  a  "mediator"  as 
in  case  of  the  world,  we  have  the  "passion"  ele- 
ment of  the  soul,  mediating  between  the  divine 
in  man  and  the  earthly.  As  to  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  Plato  insists  upon  this  as  true,  but 
his  arguments  are  among  the  weakest,  so  the  best 
authorities  think,  of  all  he  brings  to  bear  upon 
great  questions.     Perhaps  this  is  because  we  have 


PLATO  47 

now  no  sympathy  with  the  doctrine  of  the  pre- 
existence  of  souls,  and  yet  this  as  an  argument 
meant  much  to  Plato,  as  we  can  well  see.  The 
doctrines  of  Plato  as  to  rewards  and  punishments 
are  Pythagorean  to  such  an  extent  that  we  are 
inclined  to  suppose  he  accepted  the  myths  and 
peculiar  theories  of  this  school  of  speculators  al- 
most in  their  entirety. 

Plato's  politics 

Politics  and  ethics  are  closely  allied  in  Plato. 
The  State  is  but  an  individual  on  a  large  scale. 
Hence  ethics  for  the  individual  will  be  one  with 
ethics  for  the  state.  Using  the  same  analysis 
for  the  state  he  did  for  the  soul,  we  have  the 
governing  class  likened  to  the  reason  in  man,  and 
this  should  consist  of  philosophers ;  the  sensuous 
element  in  the  soul  is  likened  to  the  laborers  and 
handicraftsmen ;  the  passionate  element  in  the  soul, 
to  the  soldiers,  who  mediate  between  the  govern- 
ing and  the  laboring  classes.  Virtue  in  the  first 
class  is  wisdom ;  in  the  second,  is  temperance ;  and 
in  the  third,  courage.  In  Plato's  earlier  dialogues 
he  merges  everything  in  the  state  so  as  to  practi- 
cally ignore  the  home.  He  modifies  this  in  his 
latest  works.  He  also  modified  his  views  concern- 
ing a  "monarchy"  which  he  at  first  advanced;  he 
afterwards   suggested   a   mixed   government. 

His  famous  directions  as  to  the  education  of 
children  are  so  well  known  that  I  do  not  feel  it 
necessary   to   give   them.      It   is   worthy   of  note 


48  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

that  Plato's  disappointment  in  his  different  mis- 
sions to  Dionysius  (the  younger  and  older),  in- 
fluenced him  largely  in  his  notions  concern- 
ing the  State.  His  disgust  and  humiliation  over 
the  conditions  at  Athens,  Walter  Pater  thinks  led 
him  to  model  his  Ideal  state  after  the  simple 
and  hardy  Spartan  one.  It  would  seem  that 
Plato  was  in  earnest  in  his  theories  concern- 
ing the  State  as  his  most  finished  dialogue,  the 
"Republic,"  is  taken  up  with  discussions  which 
center  about  it;  yet  we  must  remember  that  Plato 
only  uses  the  "  larger  individual"  to  illustrate  and 
exemplify  his  notions  of  Justice.  So  after  all 
we  come  back  to  the  starting  point  that  Plato 
was  at  bottom  an  ethical  teacher.  He  would  use 
everything  to  enforce  what  he  considered  the  essen- 
tial things  of  life — Justice,  Temperance,  Good- 
ness, Beauty. 

Plato's  ethics 

The  Platonic  Ethics  results  from  Socrates'  ethi- 
cal principles  combined  with  Plato's  metaphysics 
and  anthropology.  Not  to  speak  in  the  order  of 
the  development  of  his  theory  but  rather  after 
the  logical  order  of  the  system  as  a  whole,  we  see 
the  Highest  Idea  of  Plato  identified  with  the  Good. 
And  as  according  to  him  the  Highest  Idea  gives 
something  of  its  nature  to  all  ideas  beneath  it, 
and  is  of  the  nature  of  the  Absolute,  we  see  what 
Weber  has  happily  said  that  Plato's  ontology  is 
"  the  monism  of  the  good."     The  Scriptures  say 


PLATO  49 

God  is  Love ;  they  say  in  substance  He  is  Good- 
ness. Plato  by  placing  Goodness  or  the  Good  at 
the  apex  of  his  gradation  of  Ideas  gives  an  ethi- 
cal turn  to  his  whole  philosophy.  Yes,  more  than 
a  "turn."  All  things  must  partake  somewhat  of 
the  ethical,  and  have  an  ethical  end  in  view. 

According  to  the  view  that  "matter"  is  essen- 
tially evil  and  the  soul  belongs  to  the  world  above 
the  senses,  from  which  it  has  by  some  mischance 
come,  the  possession  of  the  highest  good  or  happi- 
ness must  result  from  the  subordination  of  things 
sensuous  to  the  divine  principle  of  the  soul.  This 
makes  Plato's  ethics  approach  very  near  to  the 
christian.  Our  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  and 
the  revelation  that  the  body  may  be  the  temple 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  with  other  declarations  of  the 
Scriptures,  have  enabled  us  to  rise  above  what 
would  be  natural  for  us  to  accept  were  we  subject 
to  Plato's  conditions.  We  experience  the  same 
struggles  he  did,  and  have  in  view  much  the  same 
end  he  had;  only  we  are  not  vexed  as  he  was 
with  the  notion  that  to  escape  from  the  world  as 
soon  as  possible,  either  by  one  means  or  other, 
might  be  man's  duty.  We  indeed  do  teach  that 
there  is  such  an  experience  as  "death"  (crucifixion 
with  Christ)  which  might  be  likened  to  Plato's 
"philosophic  death ;"  but  He  who  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light,  taught  that  the  world  is  good 
if  used  aright. 

Plato  says  Virtue  and  Knowledge  are  identical 
or  practically  so.     He  says  Virtue  can  be  taught. 


50  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

as  it  is  a  science.  But  Virtue  in  the  Platonic 
sense  is  not  what  we  ordinarily  mean  when  we 
use  the  word.  In  his  estimation  Virtue  is  insight. 
He  pendulates  between  the  declaration  that  virtue 
is  one  and  that  there  are  many.  Perhaps  this  can 
be  reconciled  by  saying  virtue  is  essentially  one, 
but  has  many  forms  of  development.  His  four- 
fold division  of  virtue  is:  wisdom,  courage,  tem- 
perance and  justice.  His  theory  that  virtue  is 
one  is  illustrated  in  this  very  division,  for  he  says 
that  while  wisdom  is  virtue  of  the  intellect,  courage, 
virtue  of  the  passionate  element  of  the  soul,  and 
temperance,  virtue  of  the  sensuous  nature — still 
justice  is  the  principle  which  pervades  and  regu- 
lates the  whole  man.  Thus  Justice  is  the  supreme, 
unifying  virtue,  which,  something  like  the  Highest 
Good,  includes  in  itself  all  the  others  beneath  it 
and  thus  really  makes  virtue  one. 

As  to  pleasure,  Plato  says  true  virtue  carries 
with  it  its  own  reward;  to  do  injustice  is  worse 
than  to  suffer  it;  to  go  unpunished  worse  than 
to  be  punished  when  guilty.  Right  for  right's 
sake  is  Platonic.  He  would  not  despise  pleasure 
as  the  cynics  do ;  nor  make  it  the  end  of  existence 
as  the  hedonists  do.  He  would  take  the  middle 
ground  and  it  would  seem  the  true  one,  that  there 
is  something  to  be  sought  which  identifies  the 
soul  with  that  which  is  above,  viz.,  what  will  put 
us  "in  tune  with  the  Infinite."  Indeed  Plato's 
justice  might  be  defined  as  the  harmony  of  all 
the  parts  of  the  soul — because  in  communion  with 
the  Highest  Good. 


PLATO  61 

In  Ethics  as  in  Politics,  Physics,  and  every  de- 
partment of  his  philosophy,  Plato  intimates  a 
trinity  of  doctrines.  In  his  doctrine  of  the  soul 
we  have  reason,  passion,  appetite.  In  ontology, 
being,  becoming,  non-being.  In  Politics,  rulers, 
warriors,  laborers.  In  cosmogony  God,  the  soul 
of  the  world,  and  matter.  In  Ethics — wisdom, 
courage,  temperance. 

One  of  the  most  fruitful  as  well  as  fascinating 
studies  in  connection  with  Plato  is  that  of 
"Platonism  after  Plato,"  including  as  it  does,  not 
only  the  teaching  immediately  succeeding  the  death 
of  the  founder  of  the  Academy,  but  also  the  far- 
reaching  influence  of  this  wonderful  man.  Here 
we  find  those  suggestions  and  anticipations  in  which 
he  was  so  rich  and  which  make  us  think  of  him 
as  we  do  of  a  prophet.  The  well-known  sentence 
of  our  American  poet-philosopher,  Emerson,  is 
hardly  an  exaggeration:  "Out  of  Plato  come  all 
things  that  are  still  written  and  debated  among 
men  of  thought." 


Ill 

KANT:     A    PROTEST    AGAINST 
MATERIALISM 

"  Between  Socrates  and  Kant,"  say  Schopen- 
hauer, "  there  are  many  points  of  resemblance. 
Both  reject  all  dogmatism,  both  profess  complete 
ignorance  as  to  things  metaphysical,  and  the  speci- 
ality of  both  lies  in  their  consciousness  of  this 
ignorance.  Both  maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that 
the  practical  question  as  to  what  men  should  do 
or  leave  undone  may  be  ascertained  with  certainty, 
and  this  by  themselves  without  further  theoreti- 
cal preparation.  It  was  the  fate  of  both  to  have 
immediate  successors  and  declared  disciples,  who 
nevertheless  departed  from  their  principles  in  this 
very  particular,  and,  cultivating  metaphysics,  in- 
troduced entirely  dogmatic  systems  of  their  own; 
further,  that  notwithstanding  the  great  divergence 
of  their  several  systems,  all  professed  themselves 
to  be  derived  respectively  from  the  doctrine  of 
Socrates  or  of  Kant." 

Some  will  say  that  philosophy  has  attained  to 
nothing  beyond  Kant.  In  his  "Historical  Intro- 
duction" to  Max  Miiller's  translation  of  Kant's 
"Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Ludwig  Noire  says : 
"It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Kant  is  the  greatest 
philosophical  genius  that  has  ever  dwelt  upon 
earth,  and  the  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason'  the 
highest  achievement  of  human  reason." 
52 


KANT  53 

Whether  we  accept  such  an  estimate  of  Kant, 
or  a  more  moderate  one,  we  but  echo  the  gen- 
eral opinion  of  those  who  have  a  right  to  an 
opinion  on  such  a  subject,  when  we  affirm 
that  in  Kant  Modem  Philosophy  has  found  its 
many-sided  man,  whose  thought  has  been  utilized 
by  idealists,  empiricists,  agnostics,  atheists  and 
theists ;  all  claiming  that  Kant  either  by  direct 
or  implied  teaching  promulgated  what  their  sev- 
eral schools  affirm. 

Heine  says  playfully,  "  The  history  of  Kant's 
life  is  difficult  to  portray,  for  he  had  neither  life 
nor  history" — to  which  we  might  add  that  almost 
any  great  man's  outward  life  is  of  small  conse- 
quence. Kant  gives  us  notliing  with  which  to 
make  a  thrilling  biography,  unless  "biography" 
is  interpreted  to  mean  the  history  of  one's  mental 
life;  in  that  case,  we  know  that  Kant  lived  much, 
long  and  strenuously. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
a  visitor  to  the  little  town  of  Konigsberg,  on  the 
northeastern  frontier  of  Germany,  might  have 
seen,  descending  the  steps  of  a  plain  house  on 
a  retired  street  of  the  town,  a  small,  hollow-chested, 
serious-looking  man,  who  wore  a  gray,  close-fit- 
ting overcoat,  and  carried  a  cane.  Such  was  the 
regularity  with  which  this  man  took  his  after- 
noon walk  (promptly  at  half-past  three)  that  the 
townspeople  could  set  their  watches  by  his  issu- 
ing from  his  study  for  his  walk.  This  was  Imman- 
uel   Kant — philosopher,   bachelor,   professor,   and 


54  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

withal  the  man  who  was  to  revolutionize  the  philo- 
sophic world. 

He  came  of  very  plain  parents ;  his  father  was 
a  saddler,  and  his  mother,  Anna  Regine  Renter, 
was  remarkable  for  nothing  more  than  her  simple 
religious  faith  which  was  developed  under  Pie- 
tistic  influences.  The  famous  son  of  such  parents 
was  born  1724  and  lived  eighty  years,  practically 
without  getting  out  of  sight  of  the  smoke  of  his 
native  city.  Like  Whittier,  he  traveled  little  but 
made  up  for  this  by  reading  with  relish  Avhat  others 
had  seen  and  described.  In  this  way  Kant  kept 
pace  with  the  ongoing  of  the  world.  When  we 
remember  that  when  he  began  his  life  work  in 
earnest  (1770)  the  struggle  for  Independence  in 
America  was  on,  and  the  French  revolution  was 
brewing,  we  appreciate  how  interesting  were  the 
times  in  which  Kant's  lot  was  cast. 

Kant  matriculated  at  Konigsberg  University  in 
1740,  and  his  mind  seemed  from  the  first  to  turn 
towards  the  sciences.  In  1746  he  handed  to  the 
dean  of  the  philosophical  department  a  disserta- 
tion on  "  The  True  Evaluation  of  Dynamic 
Forces,"  evincing  a  thorough  acquaintance  with 
the  issue  between  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  regarding 
the  measuring  of  force ;  this  first  attempt  indicated, 
too,  his  disposition  to  reconcile  differences  between 
men  of  opposite  schools  of  thought  by  showing 
how  both  were  right  in  part.  This  spirit  of  re- 
conciliation he  retained  all  through  life  and  it 
characterizes  his  writings.     Kant's  mother  had  died 


KANT  56 

in  1737,  and  his  father,  the  year  this  first  attempt 
of  his  son  at  authorship  made  its  appearance.  I 
mention  these  things  to  add  that  in  Kant's  diary 
we  find  written  concerning  the  death  of  his  father : 
"May  God,  who  did  not  permit  him  to  taste  many 
joys  in  life,  grant  to  him  in  return  to  be  a  par- 
taker of  everlasting  happiness."  This  expression, 
in  connection  with  the  tender  manner  in  which  Kant 
spoke  of  his  mother  and  her  religion,  should  be 
sufficient  reply  to  those  who  say  that  the  great 
philosopher  was  selfish,  and  was  wanting  in  appre- 
ciation of  the  worth  of  others.  Poverty  was  Kant's 
companion  from  his  youth:  if  in  after  life  when 
he  had  a  competence,  he  lived  simply  and  at  the 
end  made  his  sisters,  who  lived  in  obscurity  in 
Konigsberg,  his  heirs,  we  can  not  say  that  compe- 
tence or  fame  ever  "turned  his  head"  or  deflected 
him  from  the  path  he  had  marked  out  in  which 
to  walk,  viz.  to  consecrate  himself  to  an  investiga- 
tion of  the  Truth. 

In  1755  Kant  began  his  work  as  private  lec- 
turer. He  made  application  for  vacant  professor- 
ships at  his  Alma  Mater  for  the  next  fifteen 
years,  but  was  not  rewarded  until  1770.  Had 
he  consented  to  go  from  his  loved  Konigsberg, 
he  might  have  found  both  honor  and  appreciation, 
but  contrary  to  the  principle  that  a  prophet  is 
not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country,  Kant 
confesses  he  had  an  instinct  which  prevented  him 
from  making  any  change,  even  when  off'ered  a 
place  at  Jena,  saying,  "  If  I  am  to  draw  a  little 


56  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

longer  the  threads  which  the  Fates  spin  very  thin 
for  men,  I  must  abide  where  I  am."  Knowing 
his  bodily  frailty  and  his  dependence  on  habits 
which  had  grown  strong,  he  remained  a  mere  tutor 
longer  than  would  otherwise  have  been  necessary 
in  order  that  he  might  eventually  be  professor 
where  he  felt  his  life  work  lay.  But  while  he  was 
waiting  he  was  not  idle.  During  this  time — usu- 
ally called  the  Pre-Critical  period  in  Kant's  life 
— he  was  busy  investigating  Nature  and  Mind. 
He  published  his  "Natural  History  of  the 
Heavens"  as  a  result  of  his  study  and  teaching 
of  Physical  Geography,  which  study,  by  the 
way,  he  was  the  first  to  introduce  into  the 
University  Courses.  His  treatment  of  the  ori- 
gin and  structure  of  the  world  is  characteristic, 
in  that  it  shows  us  the  Kant  of  the  future. 
The  work  was  Newtonian  in  principle,  but  left 
out  the  direct  interposition  of  God.  He  thought 
religion  had  no  interest  in  setting  limits  to 
the  mechanical  explanation  of  natural  phenomena. 
He  thought  that  explanations  of  nature  by 
suggestions  of  the  purposes  of  God  was  the  method 
of  "  an  easy  philosophy  that  tries  to  hide  its  vain 
uncertainty  under  pious  airs."  Here  we  see  the 
man  doing  what  he  afterwards  fully  carried  out 
in  his  Critical  Philosophy — separating  natural 
science  and  religious  faith.  How  far  Kant  is  re- 
sponsible for  this  wide-spread  notion  reaching  to 
us  of  today,  I  will  not  attempt  to  estimate. 
Surely  he  had  his  part  in  it. 


KANT  57 

Up  to  1770  Kant  had  published,  in  addition  to 
the  Essays  already  mentioned,  "The  False  Sub- 
tility  of  Syllogistic  Figures,"  "The  Only  Possible 
Basis  of  Proof  of  the  Being  of  God,"  "The  Intro- 
duction of  a  Negative  Quantity  into  Philosophy," 
"The  Evidence  of  the  Principles  of  Natural  The- 
ology and  Morals,"  and  "Dreams  of  a  Ghost- 
Seer."  These  essays  indicate  the  trend  of  Kant's 
thought,  especially  his  tendency  to  ghde  from  Na- 
ture to  Mind.  His  celebrated  "Dissertation"  whicli 
outlined  his  after  work  and  marked  the  great 
"divide"  in  his  life,  was  published  the  year  he  was 
made  full  professor,  and  was  entitled  "A  Disserta- 
tion on  the  Form  and  Principles  of  the  Sensible 
and  Intelligible  World." 

The  world  saw,  in  1781,  the  "Critique  of 
Pure  Reason,"  and  it  was  followed  in  1783  by 
a  "  Prolegomena  to  Every  Future  Metaphysic" — 
a  most  important  work,  and  explanatory  of  his 
"Critique  of  Pure  Reason."  The  "Critique 
of  the  Practical  Reason"  was  issued  in  1788,  and 
"  The  Critique  of  the  Judgment"  in  1790.  Al- 
though he  wrote  to  the  year  of  his  death,  1804, 
the  works  by  which  Kant  will  be  known  for  time  to 
come  are  his  famous  "Critiques,"  especially  that 
of  the  Pure  Reason,  and  his  "Prolegomena."  The 
"Dissertation"  of  1770  is  valuable  to  those  who 
wish  to  study  the  growth  of  a  theory  in  a  man's, 
mind. 

The  last  days  of  Kant  were  like  those  of  Walter 
Scott,  tantalizing  in  that  he  attempted  to  write  but 


58  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

could  not — his  powers  having  failed  him.  The 
gentle  old  man,  whose  kindliness  of  heart  and  de- 
votion to  study,  should  have  spared  him  the  bitter 
things  which  have  been  said  of  him,  died  12th 
of  February,  1804,  with  the  words  on  his  lips, 
in  reply  to  some  kindness  offered,  "  It  is  good." 
He  was  buried  in  the  Cathedral  of  his  native  place, 
and  over  his  grave  are  his  celebrated  words,  taken 
from  the  "  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason ;" 

"  The  starry  heavens  above  me, 
The  moral  law  within  me." 

rant's   mental,  history 

If  the  poet  who  plucked  a  "flower  from  the  cran- 
nied wall"  could  say  of  it 

"  If  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is, " 

we  may  say  of  Kant  that  could  we  know  him 
"all  and  all" — his  mental  history  especially,  dat- 
ing back  as  it  does  into  days  of  philosophy's  be- 
ginnings, we  should  know  Philosophy.  As  the 
wave  that  touches  the  highest  point  on  the  beach 
is  part  of  the  illimitable  ocean,  which  is  back  of 
the  wave  giving  it  force,  so  a  great  man  is  after  all 
but  part  of  that  mysterious  Unity  which  we  call 
Humanity.  And  as  each  movement  of  the  tide  that 
carries  individual  waves  high  upon  the  beach,  has 
back  of  it  an  influence  which  we  have  discovered 
to  be  due  to  the  attraction    of    heavenly  bodies ; 


KANT  59 

so  there  are  peculiar  "movements"  in  the  world  of 
Thought  which  have  hitherto  baffled  our  investiga- 
tions, but  which  no  doubt  have  their  origin  "  in  the 
heavenlies,"  where  the  Spirit  broods  over  our  moral 
and  mental  chaos  and  brings  to  pass  in  the  fulness 
of  time  those  mighty  upheavals  which  in  their 
totality  represent  the  thing  we  call  the  develop- 
ment of  our  Race.  To  search  for  a  man's  place 
in  this  onward  movement  of  the  world — and  espe- 
cially the  place  of  a  man  whose  influence  was  such 
as  Kant's — is  to  search  for  the  really  undiscover- 
able ;  but  even  an  approximation  here  to  the  truth 
is  not  only  of  high  value,  but  the  search  itself  is 
rewarded  by  rich  returns. 

Let  a  brief  survey  of  the  remote  past  suffice 
to  show  the  progress  of  thought  to  the  time  of 
Kant's  immediate  predecessors. 

Coleridge  said,  "a  man  is  bom  either  a  Platonist 
or  an  Aristotelian :"  but  Kant's  disposition  to  unite 
in  himself  opposing  schools  of  thought  made  him 
both  Platonist  and  Aristotelian.  Without  stop- 
ping to  note  the  happy  guesses  and  wonderful 
anticipations  of  Heraclitus,  Democritus,  Pytha- 
goras, and  Parmenides,  the  sum  of  ancient  philo- 
sophy might  be  put  in  few  words,  thus ;  Socrates 
by  his  "  Know  thyself"  turned  the  attention  of 
man  to  Mind  as  the  important  field  for  investiga- 
tion, if  one  would  be  a  philosopher.  Plato  in 
obedience  to  this  injunction  created  a  theory  of 
knowledge,  and  Aristotle  completed  it  with  the 
addition   of   Logic.      The  character  of  "matter" 


60  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

became  the  burning  question.  What  is  the  sub- 
stantial, and  how  are  reconciled  deceptive  appear- 
ances with  knowledge?  How  make  the  connection 
between  the  knowing  mind  and  inert  matter?  We 
have  seen  how  Plato  bridged  the  gulf  by  his  theory 
of  reminiscence,  and  how  he  disposed  of  matter  by 
his  theory  of  non-being.  We  find  that  Aristotle  is 
"Kantian"  in  his  love  of  Nature  and  in  his  dis- 
position to  investigate  the  same.  But  the  vital 
point  of  connection  between  the  system  of  Kant 
and  Aristotle  is  to  be  found  in  their  treatment  of 
"  form  and  matter."  Even  the  celebrated  illustra- 
tion used  by  Kant  of  the  "hand"  is  Aristotelian, 
for  that  great  man  of  the  ancients  says :  "  But 
the  soul  may  be  compared  to  the  hand,  for  the 
hand  is  the  tool  of  tools,  as  the  mind  is  the  form 
of  forms."  When  we  remember  that  Aristotle  held 
the  theory  that  "form,"  or  idea  (which  is  the 
chief  element  in  perception)  lays  hold  of  matter, — 
"potential  stuff" — and  makes  the  same  "actual" — 
we  see  that  he  was  saying  what  Kant  in  the  after 
days  put  in  more  express  terms.  In  his  "Prolego- 
mena," Kant  resents  the  suggestion  that  his  doc- 
trines can  be  traced  to  what  has  been  long  ago 
said:  "General  principles  are  not  easily  learned 
from  other  men,  who  have  had  them  obscurely 
in  their  minds.  We  must  hit  on  them  first 
by  our  reflection,  then  we  find  them  elsewhere, 
where  we  could  not  possibly  have  found  them 
at  first,  because  the  authors  themselves  did  not 
know    that    such    an    idea    lay    at    the    basis    of 


KANT  61 

their  observations."  These  words  from  the  Pre- 
amble of  his  "Prolegomena"  indicate  that  Kant 
knew  that  his  therories  had  been  foreshadowed 
by  others,  but  he  took  the  ground  which  many 
have  taken  on  such  subjects,  viz.,  that  men  in  the 
past  w^ere  wiser  than  they  knew.  This  is  probably 
true,  but  nevertheless,  when  Kant  takes  Aristotle's 
"Categories"  bodily,  and  uses  even  in  his  explana- 
tion of  his  theory  of  "  forms  of  mind"  an  illus- 
tration which  Aristotle  used,  we  are  bound  to 
think  that  he  must  have  imbibed  even  more  fully 
than  he  was  aware  of,  much  of  Ancient  philosophy. 
When  we  remember,  too,  that  Kant  was  past  fifty 
when  he  wrote  his  masterpiece,  we  can  understand 
how  what  he  had  read  had  become  so  much  a 
part  of  himself  that  he  failed  to  consider  his  in- 
debtedness to  the  labors  of  other  men. 

Medieval  Philosophy  might  be  summed  up, 
as  to  its  results,  somewhat  as  follows :  Its  theory 
of  Absolute  Intelligence  satisfied  the  cravings  of 
reason  for  unity  and  spirituality.  The  Polythe- 
ism of  the  populace,  the  Atoms  of  Democritus, 
the  Ideas  of  Plato,  the  Substances  of  Aris- 
totle,— disappear,  and  God  reigns  alone.  Meta- 
physics becomes  possible  as  something  transcend- 
ing the  Objective.  The  material  and  spiritual 
are  separated.  Concepts  have  taken  the  place  of 
Plato's  objective  Ideas.  But  the  Absolute  Intelli- 
gence of  the  medievals  threatened  to  absorb  the 
individual.  The  investigations  of  scientists  caused 
the  objective  world  to  reassert  itself,  and  threatened 


62  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

a  relapse  into  mere  materialism.  The  times  were 
ripe  for  Descartes's  "Cogito,"  which  occasioned 
philosophy  for  sometime  to  oscillate  between  Mind 
and  Matter.  This  brings  us  to  the  Modem  Period 
in  Philosophy,  opening  with  Descartes. 

But  before  Descartes  is  taken  up,  and  we  pass 
from  him  on  to  his  successors  which  lead  to  Kant, 
certain  influences  should  be  noted,  without  taking 
account  of  which  we  can  hardly  appreciate  Kant's 
position  as  a  thinker  and  philosopher. 

The  Renaissance  may  be  dated  from  1450;  the 
first  Bible  published  by  means  of  movable  types 
was  in  1456 ;  America  was  discovered  in  1492 ; 
Luther  posted  his  celebrated  Theses  in  1517 ;  Co- 
pernicus published  his  theory  concerning  the  Solar 
System  in  1543;  Descartes  was  bom  1596;  Bruno 
suffered  martyrdom  in  Rome  in  1600;  Kant  was 
horn  in  1724 ;  American  Independence  was  de- 
clared in  1776 ;  the  French  Revolution  broke  out  in 
1789.  The  dates  given  above  that  lead  up  to 
Kant  and  cover  his  life,  are  the  ones  of  many 
that  mark  epochs,  and  that  indicate  the  trend 
of  thought.  The  Renaissance  meant  the  most 
potent  influence  in  the  overthrow  of  Scholasticism. 
The  Reformation  which  followed  the  awakening  of 
independent  thought,  was  aided  by  the  discovery 
of  printing,  and  the  thrill  that  civilized  man 
experienced  at  the  discovery  of  what  was  practi- 
cally a  new  world.  The  bold  theory  of  Copernicus 
and  the  inspiration  his  discovery  gave  to  science, 
as  well  as  the  perfect  annihilation  which  Aristotle 


KANT  63 

seemed     to     suffer     therefrom,    stirred     men     to 
both   doubt  and   investigation.      That  a   scientist 
and  philosopher  should  suffer  as  a  martyr  as  late 
as  1600,  where  Savonarola  had  suffered  a  similar 
death  just  one  hundred  years  before,  must  have 
produced  a  decided  impression  on  thinking  men. 
The   17th   century   was   marked  by   political   up- 
heavals, which  indicated  how  determined  the  masses 
of  the   people  were  to   assert  their  rights.      The 
rise  of  Cromwell  in  England  and  the  revolution 
which  resulted  in   the   overthrow   of  the  Stuarts 
in  1688,  were  followed  hard  by  the  age  of  Enlight- 
enment— the  18th  century — which,  with  its  oppo- 
site religious  tendency.  Pietism,  had  much  to  do 
with  making  Kant  what  he  was.     He  appreciated 
the  struggle  for  independence  which  in  America 
took  the  form  it  did,  compelling  respect,  and  admi- 
ration ;    and   the    abnormal    spirit    of   the   French 
which  resulted  in  the  French  Revolution.     In  the 
meantime  Kant  was  what  every  man  must  to  some 
extent  be, — a  creature  of  his  age.     But  the  great 
movements   I   have   just  referred  to   can   not  be 
ignored  if  we  would  historically  criticise  the  author 
of   the   "  Critique    of   Pure    Reason."      To   what 
has  been  said,  we  should  add  that  a  reaction  from 
Enlightenment  (  which  meant  the  enthronement  of 
Reason)  had  set  in  during  Kant's  life,  which  re- 
action known  as  Romanticism,  had  Lessing,  Rous- 
seau, and  later  Goethe,  as  its  most  famous  expo- 
nents.    Kant  acknowledges  he  was  much  influenced 
by  this  movement.     In  the  name  of  Heart,  it  chal- 
lenged Reason  to  be  less  imperious. 


64  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

To  return  to  Descartes,  as  the  starting-point 
in  Modern  Philosophy  and  the  exponent  of  pure 
DuaHsm,  his  contributions  to  philosophy  might 
be  summed  up  as  follows :  His  greatest  achieve- 
ment was  to  start  from  the  knowing  subject 
without  assumptions.  He  thus  called  attention 
to  the  correct  view-point  which  afterwards  greatly 
aided  all  who  pursued  philosophic  studies.  Des- 
cartes also  moved  in  the  direction  of  Kantianism 
by  conceding  real  existence  only  to  the  universal 
principles  of  thought  and  matter,  as  advocated  by 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  while  he  denied  the  separate 
existence  of  objects  derived  from  these,  as  well  as 
the  title  of  such  objects  to  be  called  "things  in 
themselves."  Plato  had  made  the  "Idea"  an 
entity,  and  Aristotle  had  made  the  "form"  an 
entity,  or  its  equivalent.  Matter,  according  to 
Descartes,  is  but  a  modification  of  extended 
substance;  and  ideas  are  but  modes  of  the 
thinking  substance.  Descartes  credits  the  soul 
with  what  he  called  "innate  ideas,"  which  per- 
haps was  an  unfortunate  way  of  expressing 
himself;  but  his  suggestion  had  in  it  an  ele- 
ment of  truth.  In  Kant  this  truth  will  come  out 
as  a  priori  postulates  of  human  knowledge.  As 
a  mathematician,  Descartes  taught  that  everything 
in  the  material  world  is  accomplished  in  accordance 
with  mechanical  laws.  The  mind  cannot  add 
to  or  take  from  the  quantity  of  matter  or  motion, 
but  it  can  give  direction  to  movement  by  making 
use  of  efficient  causes.    To  this  should  be  added  the 


KANT  65 

discovery  of  the  relativity  of  motion,  i.e.  no  change 
takes  place  by  itself,  but  only  in  relation  to  some- 
thing else.  This  has  its  bearing  on  Kant  who 
stresses  the  relativity  of  human  knowledge. 

Descartes  left  for  future  development  by  philo- 
sophy the  following:  The  nature  of  "body"  as 
he  defined  it  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  from 
the  space  it  occupies.  Extension  is  its  sole  prop- 
erty. To  deal  with  the  external  world  mathe- 
matically we  must  have  one  quality,  extension, 
and  Descartes  gave  it  that.  But  extended  sub- 
stance, without  other  qualities,  becomes  what.'' 
The  assumption  of  specific  differences  in  bodies 
as  created  by  God,  and  the  unexplained  daulism, 
implied  in  the  "extended  substance"  and  the 
"thinking  substance,"  left  philosophy  hard  prob- 
lems to  solve,  while  many  minds  recognized  the  con- 
tradictions involved  in  all  this.  The  use  of  the 
word  "substance"  occasioned  no  little  trouble,  and 
Kant  will  find  fault  with  Descartes'  implication 
when  the  latter  says,  "I  think,  therefore  I  am," 
remarking  that  Descartes  mentally  adds,  "a  think- 
ing substance.^' 

Descartes  threw  into  the  philosophic  company 
the  apple  of  discord,  but  singular  to  say,  the 
apple  seemed  to  break  into  two  pieces,  the  Materi- 
alists took  cne  half  saying  it  was  the  original,  and 
the  Idealists  took  the  other,  claiming  that  it  was 
the  original.  From  this  time  on,  "the  river  which 
went  from  Eden  and  parted  and  became  into  tzco 
heads,"    can    be  distinctly  followed.     It    is    not 


66  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

necessary  to  follow  into  its  details  the  revival  of 
the  doctrine  of  Democritus  with  modifications, 
which  the  English  philosopher,  Hobbs,  affected, 
and  which  was  almost  the  inevitable  conclusion  if 
there  was  but  one  substance  and  that  Matter.  Nor 
need  we  explain  in  detail  the  place  of  the  reaction- 
ist, Berkley,  who  took  the  opposite  extreme,  and 
said  that  the  one  substance  was  Mind.  We  shall 
find  later  that  Kant  was  very  indignant  at  being 
called  an  idealist  after  the  Berkley  stamp,  a  point 
at  which  the  difference  between  the  Englishman 
and  his  cousin  can  be  distinctly  noted. 

Materialism  slept  untroubled  by  the  presupposi- 
tions of  a  sensitive  and  intelligent  consciousness ; 
and  Idealism  was  little  concerned  about  the  club 
which  Dr.  Johnson  proposed  to  use  with  which 
to  convince  it  that  an  external  world  existed.  The 
attempt  to  restore  unity  where  had  been  made 
so  great  a  division,  was  the  work  of  the  Jew, 
Spinoza.  Some  say  his  theory  of  the  Universe  is 
simply  modified  Buddhism.  (It  would  be  sugges- 
tive to  follow  out  the  thought  how  far  a  Semite 
would  probably  be  oriental  in  his  thought  when 
dealing  with  the  fundamentals  of  philosophy.) 
Spinoza's  additions  to  philosophy,  as  interpreted 
from  the  Kantian  stand-point,  are  as  follows :  He 
put  an  end  to  the  unnatural  separation  between 
thought  and  extension.  Every  sensible  process 
could  be  conceived  according  to  Spinoza,  as  at  the 
same  time  a  material  modification  of  the  organs  of 
sense  and  as  a  variety  or  mode  of  consciousness. 


KANT  67 

Tyndall  is  thinking  of  this  distinction  when  he  calls 
heat  a  "mode  of  motion."  The  notion  of  "sub- 
stance" now  must  be  shown  to  be  a  creation  of  rea- 
son, and  must  justify  its  existence  at  the  court  of 
Reason.  Spinoza  had  a  conception  of  absolute 
and  perfect  knowledge,  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  conditioned,  and  he  thus  led  to  Kant's 
recognition  of  the  limits  of  reason,  which  he 
(Kant)  credits  to  the  aspirations  of  man  in  a 
higher  realm.  Spinoza  says :  "In  order  to  distin- 
guish between  true  and  false  ideas,  we  must  learn 
to  understand  the  peculiarities  of  the  intellect" 
Here  is  an  intimation  of  the  critical  spirit  of  Kant, 
especially  with  reference  to  the  powers  of  the 
mind. 

Says  Noire  in  his  Introduction  to  Kant's  Philo- 
sophy: "The  principal  defect  of  Spinoza's  system 
lies  naturally  in  his  idea  of  substance,  and  the  way 
in  which  it  is  deduced;  so  that  in  the  preliminary 
conception,  existence  is  tacitly  imputed  to  the  sub- 
ject, and  then  analytically  deduced  from  it,  like 
the  conjurer's  trick  in  which  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  public,  an  article  is  discovered  where  the 
performer  had  secretly  placed  it  beforehand.  The 
leap  from  the  mere  idea,  or  what  is  thought,  into 
the  actual  world,  is  the  most  violent  and  break- 
neck salto  mortale  to  be  met  with  in  any  system 
of  Philosophy." 

Descartes,  the  teacher  of  Spinoza,  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  transcendental  idea  of  the  Deity  to 
prove  the   reality   of  the  material  world   and  to 


68  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

make  a  junction  for  his  two  substances.  Spinoza 
went  further  and  made  the  Deity  immanent, 
identified  God  and  the  world,  and  thus  identified 
Descartes'  two  substances.  Spinoza's  God-world, 
or  One  Substance,  however,  swallows  up  individ- 
uality, and  his  theory  caused  a  reaction  toward  In- 
dividualism as  in  Leibnitz.  Spinoza's  recognition 
of  causal  dependence  of  spiritual  phenomena  in- 
spired the  attempt  to  inquire  into  human  knowl- 
edge in  its  relation  to  sensible  perception ;  as  we 
shall  see  in  Locke.  His  idea  that  the  existence  of 
individuals  is  but  partial  and  apparent ;  his  recog- 
nition of  greater  and  less  degrees  of  reality  pos- 
sessed by  beings — will  in  Leibnitz  meet  its  counter- 
thought  of  the  higher  liberty  and  the  superiority 
of  man. 

Spinoza's  idea  of  God  is  not  an  advance,  as 
we  interpret  his  teaching,  but  a  retrogression. 
Aristotle  called  God  the  "  Form  of  Forms ;"  Con- 
fucius simply  spoke  of  the  "  Command  of 
Heaven ;"  yet  both  speak  of  Him  as  personal — 
not,  as  it  were,  by  design,  but  inadvertently,  and 
they  thus  prove  the  promptings  of  intuition.  The 
same  is  even  true  of  Spinoza;  his  impersonal  God 
is  spoken  of  as  a  "thinking  Being." 

From  Spinoza's  Ethics  we  cull  this  anticipation 
of  Kant :  "  The  way  in  which  we  are  affected  by 
external  things  depends  more  upon  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  body  than  on  the  nature  of  the  external 
things." 

I  can  not  but  feel  that  Locke  must  stand  as  one 


KANT  69 

of  the  most  striking  personages  in  the  history 
of  philosophy.  What  he  wrote  was  popularly 
written,  and  clear.  The  reader  always  knows  what 
he  means.  Locke  read  little,  but  shows  a  cer- 
tain freshness  and  much  originality  in  his  teach- 
ing. His  great  work,  "  Essay  on  Human  Under- 
standing," was  written  when  its  author  was  fifty- 
eight.  His  mind  matured  slowly  but  in  strength. 
No  sketch  of  Kant  is  complete  without  an  appre- 
ciation of  Locke,  for  Locke  led  to  Hume. 

Among  the  many  additions  to  the  sum  of  philo- 
sophic knowledge  for  which  we  are  indebted  to 
Locke,  we  might  name:  His  fine  work  on  the  nature 
of  language.  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell  is  but  echoing 
Locke  in  his  famous  phrase  that  words  "only 
suggest"  to  another  what  the  speaker  means.  Men 
may  use  the  same  words,  but  mean  very  different 
things.  The  man  who  can  make  clear  distinctions, 
and  who  is  an  adept  in  the  use  of  words,  will  help 
to  clear  up  much  obscurity  in  philosophy  as  well 
as  theology. 

Locke  may  be  called  the  representative  Empi- 
ricist, of  the  serious  sort.  He  was  no  scoffer, 
but  like  Kant,  was  relentless  in  his  disposition  to 
probe  for  the  truth.  He  taught  that  while  general 
ideas  are  the  true  objects  of  reason;  they  origi- 
nate naturally,  and  are  perfected  by  abstrac- 
tion; and  that  thought  and  language  are  so  in- 
timately associated  that  Max  Miiller's  theory  is 
practically  anticipated.  Locke  boldly  averred  that 
ideas  were  due  to  sensible  impressions.     The  mind 


TO  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

was,  as  it  were,  an  unwritten-upon  tablet  that  was 
sensitive  to  impressions  from  without.  "  There 
is  nothing  in  the  understanding  which  did  not 
come  through  the  senses."  This  looks  like  materi- 
alism pure  and  simple.  Yet  it  is  characteristic  of 
English  philosophy,  whether  we  note  it  in  Hobbs, 
Locke,  Hume,  Spencer,  Mill,  or  others  less  famous. 

Locke  said  substance  was  inaccessible  to  human 
knowledge.  He  was  the  one  modern  philosopher 
to  bring  out  clearly  the  difference  between  primary 
and  secondary  qualities  of  matter.  This  Kant  will 
use,  and  declare  all  qualities  secondary. 

The  gaps  which  Locke  left  to  be  filled  are, 
among  many,  these:  He  shut  up  the  individual 
within  himself.  A  man  could  not  go  beyond  his 
subjective  standpoint,  Locke  was  so  concerned 
with  his  theory  of  getting  his  ideas  into  the  mind, 
that  he  did  not  enter  into  the  "  dark  room"  of 
the  mind  to  investigate  what  went  on  there.  Kant 
will  not  only  enter,  but  will  spend  most  of  his 
time  there.  Locke  naturally  called  attention  to 
the  external  world,  for  it  was  the  source,  accord- 
ing to  him,  of  our  mental  riches.  Kant  will  show 
that  the  mind  not  only  adds  something,  but  by 
far  the  greater  part.  The  mind  is  no  mere  mirror 
held  up  to  nature. 

Locke's  place  in  philosophy  is  thus  expressed 
by  Schopenhauer :  "  He  was  the  first  to  proclaim 
the  great  doctrine  that  a  philosopher  who  wishes 
to  prove  or  derive  anything  from  ideas  must  first 
investigate  the  origin  of  these  ideas,  as  their  con- 


KANT  71 

tent  and  everything  thence  deducible  must  be  de- 
termined by  their  origin,  as  the  source  of  all 
the  knowledge  attainable  through  them." 

We  have  nearly  reached  Kant  when  we  come  to 
Leibnitz.  The  latter  died  in  1716,  and  the  former 
was  born  in  1724.  Locke's  theory  of  knowl- 
edge naturally  discarded  the  notion  of  "innate 
ideas,"  and  Leibnitz  saw  the  suggestion  of 
Locke  but  refused  to  surrender  the  truth  that  the 
phrase  "  innate  ideas"  contained.  Thus  he  said 
the  mind  was  not  like  a  piece  of  blank  paper, 
but  like  a  block  of  marble  in  which  the  veins 
prefigure  the  form  of  the  statue.  The  mind  has 
not  innate  ideas  explicitly  but  possesses  them  po- 
tentially and  virtually,  only,  however,  by  its  power 
to  produce  them  out  of  itself.  He  added  wittily 
the  phrase  to  Locke's  celebrated  dictum  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  understanding  which  had  not 
come  through  the  senses,  "  but  the  understanding 
itself:'' 

Leibnitz  stands  as  the  perfect  contradiction  to 
Spinoza.  The  latter  had  swallowed  up  individ- 
ualism in  God:  the  former  pulverized  the  universe 
and  gave  to  its  monads  an  independent  existence. 
Not  only  so,  but  each  monad  was  a  sort  of  a  God. 
We  are  remided  of  the  "Ideas"  of  Plato  and  the 
hierarchy  he  suggested,  and  the  "Forms"  of  Aris- 
totle leading  to  the  "Form  of  Forms."  The  mo- 
nads of  Leibnitz  are  not  atoms,  for  atoms  are 
qualitatively    alike,   whereas    every   monad   differs 


72  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

from  every  other.  Atoms  are  extended  and  divis- 
ible, but  monads  are  indivisible — metaphysical 
points.  Atoms  are  not  representatives,  but  monads 
are,  for  each  monad  reflects  every  other  one.  Every 
monad  then  is  a  miniature  universe,  and,  mark  it 
well,  a  living  force.  If  the  universe  consists  of  inde- 
pendent existences  which  have  "  no  eyes" — that 
work  independent  of  each  other, — how  can  there 
be  any  possible  harmony  in  movement.''  "Not," 
Leibnitz,  says,  "  by  occasional  harmony  by  means 
of  miraculous  interposition,"  but  by  a  sort  of 
standing  miracle  of  "  pre-established  harmony." 
This  was  especially  illustrated  in  the  way  the  soul, 
a  monad,  operated  in  unison  with  the  body,  and 
it  was  here  that  the  illustration  of  the  two  clocks 
was  used — both  running  in  harmony,  but  each  sep- 
arate. 

The  place  of  Leibnitz  as  a  forerunner  of  Kant 
does  not  especially  appear  in  what  has  been  said 
above.  I  have  given  the  two  elements  in  Leibnitz's 
philosophy  for  which  he  is  best  known.  But  when 
we  enter  into  the  spirit  of  his  work,  we  find  that 
while  Locke  had,  by  his  theory  of  ideas,  stressed 
perception,  though  he  had  pointed  out  the  con- 
trast between  that  and  conception,  Leibnitz,  true 
to  the  German  instinct,  not  only  places  the  active 
element  in  the  foreground,  as  against  the  passive, 
or  merely  receptive,  but  looked  upon  mere  per- 
ception of  external  things  as  indirect  knowledge. 
Kant  says  that  while  Locke  attributed  everything 
to  sensation,  Leibnitz  attributed  everything  to  con- 


KANT  73 

ceptions  of  the  understanding:  the  Kantian  posi- 
tion was  a  reconciliation  between  the  two,  using  ele- 
ments of  both.  Conceptions,  Kant  said,  were  not 
the  true  matter  of  thought,  with  sensible  intui- 
tions a  less  perfect  and  confused  though  similar 
kind,  nor  are  "  things  in  themselves"  to  be  com- 
prehended by  these  conceptions,  as  Leibnitz  sug- 
gests. To  quote  Kant :  "  Leibnitz  intellectualized 
phenomena,  and  just  as  Locke  sensualized  all  con- 
cepts of  the  understanding.  Instead  of  represent- 
ing the  understanding  and  sensibility  as  two  totally 
different  sources  of  representations,  which  however 
can  supply  objectively  valid  judgments  of  things 
only  in  conjunction  with  each  other,  each  of  these 
great  men  (Locke  and  Leibnitz)  recognized  but 
one  of  them,  which  in  their  opinion  applied  immedi- 
ately to  things  by  themselves,  while  the  other  did 
nothing  but  to  produce  either  disorder  or  order 
in  the  representations  of  the  former." 

The  key-note  to  Kant  is  found  then,  with  ref- 
erence to  all  other  preceding  philosophies,  in  this : 
he,  the  sage  of  Konigsberg,  eliminated  substance 
to  which  all  others  before  him,  after  repeated 
attempts  to  be  free  from  it,  had  returned  for  a 
foothold. 

This  brings  us  to  Hume.  Although  his  import- 
ance to  the  Kantian  philosophy  is  vital,  his  posi- 
tion can  be  expressed  in  a  few  words,  and  so  can 
his  relation  to  Kant.  Hume  is  a  continuation  of 
Locke.     He  is  of  course  a  member  of  that  company 


74  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

who  laid  hold  of  Descartes'  half  of  the  Apple  of 
Discord  and  called  it  Materialism.  Perhaps  it 
might  better  be  said  that  he  considered  both  the 
realistic  and  the  idealistic  standpoints  in  philoso- 
phy as  unassailable.  He  admitted  the  claims  of 
both  as  in  harmony  with  rational  thought,  and 
since  they  contradict  each  other,  held  that  there  is 
nothing  left  but  Doubt. 

Hume  attacked  the  citadel  of  Reason — the  idea 
of  Causation.  Schopenhauer  says :  "  Before  Hume 
no  one  had  doubted  that  the  principle  of  the  suffi- 
cient reason,  in  other  words,  the  law  of  causation, 
stood  first  and  foremost  in  earth  and  heaven.  For 
it  was  an  eternal  truth,  subsisting  independently, 
superior  to  gods  or  destiny:  everything  else,  the 
understanding  which  apprehends  the  principle,  as 
well  as  the  world  at  large  and  whatsoever  there 
may  be  which  is  the  cause  of  the  world,  such  as 
atoms,  motion,  a  creator,  or  the  like,  exists  only 
in  conformity  with  and  in  virtue  of  this.  Hume 
was  the  first  to  whom  it  occurred  to  ask  whence 
this  law  of  causality  derived  its  authority,  and  to 
demand  its  credentials." 

Locke  had  gone  so  far  as  to  deduce  the  causal 
relation  from  experience,  in  that  he  said  that  the 
resistance  of  bodies  to  our  pressure  originated  the 
idea  of  cause.  Leibnitz,  making  distinction  be- 
tween necessary  and  accidental  truths,  had  reduced 
the  former  to  identical  propositions,  while  the 
latter  he  referred  to  in  endless  series.  Still,  the 
"  sufficient  reason,"  or  idea  of  cause,  he  maintained 


KANT  75 

strenuously.  The  opposition  between  contingent 
and  necessary  truths  Hume  thought  irreconcilable, 
hence  he  inferred  that  causation  and  experience 
are  incompatible,  consequently  our  assumption  of 
the  existence  of  necessary  truths  is  a  delusion. 
He  said,  "  it  was  impossible  for  the  reason  to 
construct  a  priori  such  a  connection  as  involves 
necessity ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  because 
one  thing  is,  another  thing  should  necessarily  also 
be,  or  how  the  conception  of  such  a  connection 
should  have  been  introduced  a  priori J*^  He  con- 
cluded that  the  reason  was  entirely  deceived  as 
to  this  idea,  was  in  error  in  regarding  it  as  its 
own  offspring,  seeing  it  was  really  a  bastard  child 
born  of  imagination  and  experience. 

In  reply  to  such  an  onslaught  the  Scottish  philo- 
sophers raised  the  cry  of  heresy  and  appealed  to 
"  common  sense."  Kant  is  represented  as  having 
his  righteous  indignation  stirred  not  so  much  at 
Hume's  boldness  as  at  the  sort  of  reply  his  oppo- 
nents made.  He  says  they  missed  Hume's  point 
by  taking  for  granted  the  very  thing  he  called 
in  question,  and  demonstrating  with  much  violence 
what  he  had  never  called  in  question.  The  matter 
at  issue  was  not  whether  the  conception  of  cause 
was  just,  serviceable,  and  indispensable  to  natural 
science,  for  this  had  not  been  disputed  by  Hume: 
but  the  vital  issue  was,  whether  the  idea  of  cause 
could  be  conceived  a  priori  by  reason. 

To  answer  this  question  Kant  felt  moved  to 
write,  and  the  result  was  "  The  Critique  of  Pure 


76  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Reason,"  in  which  book  not  only  Hume,  but  other 
philosophers  and  philosophies  are  dealt  with,  and 
a  reconciliation  attempted  between  apparently  di- 
verse and  even  contradictory  systems.  By  taking 
an  entirely  new  standpoint,  in  which  he  delighted 
to  compare  himself  with  Copernicus,  Kant  pro- 
duced a  system  which,  whatever  else  may  be  said 
of  it,  has  probably  had  more  influence  on  philoso- 
phic thinking  than  any  book  of  modern  times.  His 
work  as  a  philosopher  bears  some  resemblance  to 
the  work  of  Bishop  Butler  in  the  "Analogy."  If 
the  author  did  not  make  out  his  own  case  to  the 
satisfaction  of  everybody  he  at  least  dealt  a  blow 
at  materialists  and  empiricists  generally.  Both 
Butler  and  Kant  can  be  said  to  have  at  least 
stopped  the  mouths  of  skeptics. 

HOW  KANT   CAME   TO  HIS  PEOBLEM 

The  school  represented  by  Leibnitz,  whose  doc- 
trines were  modified  without  being  improved  by 
the  unoriginal  Wolif,  was  the  Dogmatic  wing  of 
Philosophy;  and  to  it  Kant  belonged  by  associa- 
tion and  training.  Hume,  of  course,  represented 
Skepticism,  and  Hume  is  the  person  who  "aroused 
Kant  from  his  dogmatic  slumber."  The  writer  of 
the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  elected  to  call  his 
system  of  philosophy  Critical,  as  distinguished 
from  Dogmatism  and  Skepticism,  and  the  word  in- 
dicates what  Kant  had  in  mind.  From  his  early 
manhood  he  had  striven  to  reconcile  opposing 
schools  of  thought,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 


KANT  77 

at  that  when  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  was 
published  all  schools  laid  claim  to  it  and  all 
schools  denounced  it. 

This  calls  for  an  important  observation.  The 
*'  Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  is  not  only  the  book 
most  read  of  the  three  Critiques,  but  read  out  of 
proportion  to  the  others;  not  only  so,  judg- 
ment as  to  Kant's  teaching,  is  based  too  often 
upon  the  first  Critique.  It  is  here  that  the 
author  of  the  Critical  Philosophy  had  cause 
for  impatience — an  impatience  which  he  shows  in 
his  "Prolegomena" — at  the  misreading  of  his 
words  because  his  books  are  not  taken  in  their 
entirety.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  had  that  pecu- 
liarity of  mind,  such  as  one  sees  occasionally,  of 
looking  at  one  phase  of  a  subject  for  the  time,  to 
the  exclusion  of  every  other,  and  of  writing  a 
book  in  the  spirit  in  which  he  would  deliver  a 
lecture  to  an  advanced  class  in  philosophy.  Cer- 
tainly, when  a  man  writes  a  special  pamphlet  to 
explain  how  he  came  to  write  a  book,  and  tells 
in  that  pamphlet  what  he  meant,  and  what  he  did 
not  mean,  we  should  take  his  explanations  not 
as  retractions :  if  he  can  consistently  show  how 
his  apparent  contradictions  can  be  reconciled,  we 
should  allow  him  that  privilege.  Add  to  this 
fact  that  Kant  was  not  happy  in  expressing 
himself  as  a  writer,  and  we  have  perhaps  the 
secret  of  the  great  diversity  of  interpretations 
of  Kantian  philosophy.  Caird  has  well  said  that 
"Kant  is  easily  misinterpreted  if  we  stop  at  any 


78  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

stage  of  his  argument  short  of  its  final  result." 
There  are  men,  among  them  was  Heine,  who  hesi- 
tate not  to  say  that  Kant  found  it  necessary  in 
deference  to  public  opinion,  and  "old  Lampe" 
particularly,  to  "make  a  God"  after  he  had  writ- 
ten like  an  atheist  or  agnostic.  So,  too,  there  are 
those  who  say  that  the  Second  Edition  of  the 
"Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  had  in  it  an  element 
of  "back  down"  from  fear,  and  does  not  represent 
Kant  as  he  really  believed.  Max  Miiller  takes 
somewhat  such  a  view.  It  would  seem  that,  when 
Kant's  age  is  taken  into  consideration,  his  whole 
plan  being  perhaps  mapped  out  ere  he  wrote ;  the 
revolutionary  character  of  his  philosophy  and  its 
subtlety;  his  philosophy  appearing  in  three  dis- 
tinct Critiques,  each  apparently  complete  in  itself, 
yet  not  so — misunderstanding  would  be  inevitable. 
We  have  seen  that  it  was  Hume  who  aroused 
Kant;  that,  in  his  estimation,  Scottish  philoso- 
phers had  not  answered  the  skeptic ;  and  to  this  we 
may  add  that  Kant  agreed  with  Hume  in  much.  To 
prove  the  limitation  of  a  priori  knowledge  to  ex- 
perience, based  upon  an  examination  of  the  condi- 
tions of  the  knowledge  which  is  so  limited,  is  to 
yield  to  Locke  and  Hume  their  contentions,  and 
this  Kant  did :  to  claim  that  knowledge  has  another 
origin  besides  experience,  and  that  ideas  thus  ac- 
quired are  necessarily  true — is  to  contradict  Hume 
and  Locke  and  bring  down  on  the  head  of  Kant 
the  wrath  of  empiricists  generally,  and  G.  H. 
Lewes  in  particular.    And  as  by  a  priori  synthesis 


KANT  79 

alone  we  can  go  beyond  the  region  of  experience, 
naturally  the  problem  of  the  "Critique  of  Pure 
Reason"  is  this :  "How  are  Synthetic  Judgments  a 
priori  possible?"  Of  course  Kant  had  in  mind  the 
attack  Hume  had  made  on  Causation.  If  the  idea 
of  causation  can  be  found  to  be  dependent  on  ex- 
perience then  all  a  priori  ideas  must  be  given  up. 

Here  we  strike  the  matter  of  Kant's  peculiar  ter- 
minology. He  must  be  read  by  taking  words  to 
mean  what  he  says  he  means  by  them.  "Experi- 
ence" is  knowledge  of  things  given  to  us  in  sense ; 
hence,  prior  in  time  to  the  impressions  of  sense, 
there  is  no  such  knowledge.  But  "experience" 
must  be,  according  to  Kant,  distinguished  from 
the  knowledge  of  "certain  general  principles" 
which  connect  the  individual  facts  of  experience. 
These  "general  principles"  cannot  be  derived  from 
impressions  of  sense,  for  sense  gives  knowledge  of 
particulars.  If,  however,  we  take  the  highest  of 
these  general  principles  and  follow  them  to  their 
limit  we  become  entangled,  as  in  the  case  of  Casu- 
ality.  Here  we  must  either  go  back  of  experience 
and  then  into  a  series  of  causes,  ad  infinitum,  or 
postulate  a  new  conception — an  uncaused  Cause. 
Hence  the  antinomy, — the  instance  of  reason  at 
variance  with  itself.  Our  hope  in  this  perplexity 
is  to  find  a  higher  law  of  reason,  which  will  limit 
the  law  of  causality  to  the  sphere  of  sense-experi- 
ence, and  at  the  same  time  Use  this  "limiting  prin- 
ciple" to  extend  our  knowledge  into  the  region  be- 
yond the  limit.     This  in  brief,  as  I  take  it,  is  the 


80  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

real  problem  of  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason," 
and  of  the  Critiques  which  follow.  The  principles 
of  Kantianism  are  really  few;  but  in  the  applica- 
tion of  those  principles  and  in  the  mental  twists 
and  turns  which  Kant  makes  in  the  application  of 
them,  he  becomes  difficult  to  understand. 

KANTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

As  Kant's  principle  of  classification  is  a  psycho- 
logical one,  and  the  faculties  of  the  soul  may,  ac- 
cording to  his  philosophy,  be  reduced  to  knowing, 
feeling,  willing,  we  see  here  the  bed-rock  of  the 
three  Critiques — Pure  Reason,  Practical  Reason, 
Judgment,  (by  the  last  Kant  means  the  principle 
which  regulates  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain.) 

If  Experience  does  not  furnish  the  whole  of 
knowledge,  as  we  have  above  noted,  then  what  of 
the  sort  it  does  furnish?  It  is  contingent  and  vari- 
able. But  the  mind  also  furnishes  an  element — by 
means  of  those  "general  principles,"  just  referred 
to  —  and  the  character  of  this  knowledge  is 
universal  and  necessary.  Kant  does  not  say  with 
Descartes  that  we  have  "innate  ideas",  nor  does  he 
say  with  Locke  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  under- 
standing which  did  not  come  through  the  senses: 
he  says  that  "experience" — the  sense-world — fur- 
nishes a  part,  and  a  necessary  part,  of  knowledge, 
and  the  mind  furnishes  a  part,  and  just  as  neces- 
sary a  part.  Without  the  sense  element  perceptions 
would  be  empty ;  without  the  element  furnished  by 
the  mind,  conception  would  be  blind. 


KANT  81 

When  the  subjective  world  is  face  to  face  with 
the  objective,  the  two  cooperate  to  produce  knowl- 
edge. As  to  the  subject  (with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned), we  call  that  Sensibility,  which  is  affected 
by  objects,  and  it  is  entirely  passive.  It  is  the  mir- 
ror turned  upon  the  world;  but  back  of  this  sensi- 
bility is  the  Understanding,  an  active  faculty, 
which  receives  the  representations  given  by  sensi- 
bility and  whose  function  it  is  to  judge.  By  this 
faculty  perceptions  are  elevated  to  conceptions. 
Sensibility  gives  us  sensations  only,  but  not  knowl- 
edge: many  sensations  are  only  many  sensations, 
but  if  linked  by  some  connecting  faculty,  they  be- 
come unified,  and  by  means  of  imagination,  mem- 
ory and  consciousness,  become  conceptions — Knowl- 
edge. 

But  the  "raw  material"  gotten  from  the  external 
world,  and  passed  on  back  to  the  Understanding, 
has,  ere  this  is  done,  undergone  a  transformation, 
or  taken  on  it  "form".  "Form"  is  a  great  word 
with  Kant  as  it  was  with  Aristotle.  This  "form" 
constitutes  the  invariable  element  in  sensation,  as 
against  the  variable  which  belongs  to  the  mere  "raw 
material."  The  two  invariable  elements  are  Space 
and  Time,  for  you  can  not  divest  external  things 
of  the  form  of  Space,  nor  internal  things  of  the 
form  of  Time.  (Indeed,  as  we  shall  see  later.  Time 
is  a  "form"  of  both  external  and  internal  things.) 
We  can  imagine  everything  in  space  annihilated, 
but  not  space :  so  we  can  conceive  Time  going  on, 
though  everything  in  time  is  thought  of  as  annihil- 


82  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

ated.  This  is  true  of  no  other  element  in  connec- 
tion with  sensation,  and  it  is  affirmed  that  these  two 
"forms"  must  constitute  the  invariable  elements  in 
sensation — or  as  Kant  prefers  to  say,  the  "forms 
of  the  sensibility."  As  these  elements  are  not  given 
by  sensation,  but  are  furnished  by  the  sensibility, 
of  course  we  are  not  indebted  to  experience  for  a 
knowledge  of  the  same.  They  have  no  existence 
outside  of  our  sensibility.  As  the  "moulds  of  the 
mind"  they  not  only  give  form  to  the  diverse  things 
of  sensation,  but  have  no  objective  existence.  Once 
get  this  and  once  believe  it,  and  Kantianism  fol- 
lows logically,  for  everything  he  says  afterwards 
is  in  a  way  but  an  exposition  or  re-application  of 
this  thought  of  "forms"  which  the  mind  furnishes, 
whether  the  Sensibility  or  Understanding  or  Rea- 
son be  under  discussion. 

Coming  now  to  the  Understanding,  we  see  the 
same  principle  of  "form"  and  "matter"  but  a  more 
intricate  application.  We  deal  in  the  Understand- 
ing with  an  active  faculty,  and  a  complicated  one. 
We  have  taken  the  case  of  the  watch  off,  but  now 
we  come  to  deal  with  the  wheels.  Here  the  "forms" 
furnished  to  the  materials  which  the  sensibility  has 
sent  on,  are  based  on  the  sorts  of  judgments  that 
are  possible.  Taking  the  four  possible  judgments 
of  quantity,  quality,  relation  and  modality  and 
analyzing  them  much  after  the  order  of  Aristotle, 
we  have  the  twelve  Categories,  as  the  pure  forms 
of  Understanding,  corresponding  with  the  forms 
of  Space  and  Time  as  referred  to  in  connection  with 
the  sensibility. 


KANT  83 

In  the  exposition  of  the  Categories  of  the  Under- 
standing Kant  professes  to  have  answered  the  vital 
element  in  the  question,  "How  are  synthetic  judg- 
ments a  priori  possible?"  The  synthetic  judg- 
ments of  the  Categories  are  all  a  priori,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  not  dependent  upon  experience,  but  be- 
long to  the  mind  as  its  original  endowment. 

But  there  is  yet  another  department  of  the  mind 
- — the  crowning  one — which  Kant  calls  the  faculty 
of  Reason,  as  distinct  from  the  Understanding — 
the  Vernunft  as  against  the  Verstand.  Reason  re- 
duces the  variety  of  conceptions  to  their  unity.  It 
proceeds  from  generality  to  generality  till  the  ulti- 
mate or  Absolute  is  reached.  Here  we  naturally 
think  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  and  see  even  in  the 
word  that  Kant  uses  his  indebtedness  to  Plato,  for 
he  calls  the  three  pure  forms  of  Reason,  Ideas. 
Now  these  pure  forms  of  Reason  are  independent 
of  experience;  they  are  above  Sensibility,  and 
above  understanding — yet  Reason  receives  as  "raw 
material"  the  conceptions  of  the  Understanding 
just  as  the  Understanding  receives  perceptions 
from  or  through  the  Sensibility.  Hence  we  have 
the  "rock  of  offense"  in  Kantian  psychology  and 
philosophy — that  Reason  is  powerless  when  em- 
ployed on  matters  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  Under- 
standing. It  can,  according  to  Kant's  theory, 
draw  nothing  but  false  conclusions  when  exercised 
out  of  its  realm. 

The  three  great  unifying  Ideas  of  the  Reason 
are    those    which    conccni    things    subjective — the 


84  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Soul;  things  cosmologlcal — the  World;  the  ulti- 
mate and  great  unifying  principle,  binding  every- 
thing in  one — God. 

It  may  seem  vain  to  attempt  to  illustrate  Kant's 
psychology,  or  at  least  his  psychology  so  far  as  it 
bears  directly  upon  this  theory  of  knowledge,  but 
a  person  not  especially  versed  in  philosophic 
studies  might  get  from  the  following  imperfect 
illustration,  a  fair  idea  of  Kant's  meaning:  A 
man  stands  before  a  convex  mirror,  which  reflects, 
but  distorts  the  man's  form;  a  photographer's 
camera  stands  at  such  an  angle  from  the  mirror  as 
to  catch  the  distorted  reflection  of  the  man,  and  in 
turn  reverses  it  and  greatly  reduces  it  in  size.  The 
mirror  is  the  Sensibility  which  receives  the  sensa- 
tion from  without  and  "impresses"  on  that  which 
it  receives  a  "form"  due  to  the  peculiarity  of  the 
mirror;  the  mirror  in  turn  sends  on  this  distorted 
image  and  the  camera,  as  the  Understanding,  re- 
ceives the  same,  impresses  its  "form"  on  it,  and 
passes  the  twice  changed  image  to  a  beholder  who 
stands  behind  the  camera,  and  receives  through  his 
eye,  with  corresponding  changes  and  "forms,"  the 
picture  of  the  man  who  somewhere  without,  yet  not 
directly  visible,  stands  before  a  mirror.  I  am  as- 
suming vision  in  the  beholder  to  be  the  simple 
thing  the  populace  takes  it  to  be, — and  in  that  case 
we  get  in  a  vague  way  Kant's  notion  of  the  "de- 
partments" of  the  mind,  and  realize  how  the  "thing 
in  itself," — the  man  standing  before  the  mirror,  is 
not  seen  by  the  beholder;  furthermore,  the  image 


KANT  85 

of  it  which  does  reach  him  has  been  "impressed"  by 
"forms"  and  "forms,"  until  he  cannot  say  how  far 
they  have  distorted  the  original.  The  thing  seen  as 
imprinted  on  the  camera  is  only  "phenomenon" — 
the  man  that  remains  unseen  is  "noumenon,"  con- 
cerning whom  we  can  only  infer  certain  things. 
Kant  would  say  the  "raw  material"  (the  man)  esu- 
ists;  but  he  would  utterly  reject  the  assumption 
that  it  would  be  logical  to  infer  the  image  on  the 
glass  was  a  counterpart  of  the  man  standing  before 
the  mirror.  I  have  used  the  illustration  of  the 
convex  mirror  to  assist  in  getting  at  Kant's  idea — 
but  assuming  the  glass  to  be  a  normal  one,  the 
image  reflected  several  times  might  still  be  true  to 
the  original.  This  I  believe  to  be  the  fact — but 
this  is  not  Kantian. 

SOME    INFERENCES    FROM    KANT's    PSYCHOLOGY 

Strictly  speaking  Ontology  as  a  science,  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  is  impossible.  We  cannot  know  "the 
thing  in  itself,"  but  only  such  representations  of 
it  as  Sensibility,  Understanding  and  Reason  force 
us,  by  their  very  nature  to  accept. 

The  existence  of  the  external  world  is  not  di- 
rectly known,  yet  necessarily  postulated.  What 
you  cannot  demonstrate  you  may  postulate,  upon 
the  basis  of  certain  universal  and  necessary  ideas. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  objective  world  cannot  be 
relied  upon  to  be  true  as  a  subjective  impression 
of  an  objective  fact — a  mirror  held  up  before  the 
world — yet  that  knowledge  is  true  in  that  it  is  not 


86  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

a  delusion.  An  objective  world  exists,  and,  what 
is  more  important,  the  veracity  of  consciousness  is 
established.  When  the  veracity  of  consciousness 
is  established  we  have  certainty  in  morals. 

The  conciliating  spirit  of  Kant  is  seen  here  in 
that  he  agrees  with  Hume  in  saying  that  our 
knowledge  is  relative,  and  that  it  begis  with  ex- 
perience. He  differs  widely,  and  thinks  he  has  an- 
swered Hume  by  saying  that  in  consciousness  we 
have  elements  which  were  not  given  by  experience 
and  which  are  necessarily  true — or  to  quote  the 
first  words  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  "all 
our  knowledge  begins  with  experience — but  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  it  all  arises  out  of  experi- 
ence." In  consciousness  we  find  ideas  of  God,  the 
World,  etc.,  and  other  ideas  which  can  only  belong 
to  what  we  call  soul — Virtue,  Duty,  Justice.  We 
cannot  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God.  Rea- 
son is  limited  to  things  within  the  realm  of  experi- 
ence; but  the  practical  reason  affirms  what  the 
pure  reason  cannot  demonstrate.  As  in  the  case 
of  the  theoretical  part  of  Kant's  work,  he  pre- 
supposed as  existent  the  "thing  in  itself,"  though 
such  was  not  susceptible  of  being  known — so  in 
the  practical  part  we  find  the  freedom  of  the  will 
as  an  abstract  and  indeterminate  principle  that 
must  realize  itself  in  something,  and  that  some- 
thing is — action. 

The  same  principle  which  we  saw  further  back 
in  this  chapter  concerning  sensibility,  understand- 
ing and  reason — in  each  case  "imposing"  their  re- 


KANT  87 

spectlve  "forms"  on  what  they  each  receive  from 
without  or  from  each  other,  holds  good  in  the 
region  of  the  Practical  Reason:  in  the  realm  of 
conscience  man  finds  himself  obliged  to  impose  cer- 
tain rules  upon  his  actions.  These  laws  have  there- 
fore the  character  of  universality  and  necessity. 
Virtue,  justice,  etc.,  result  not  from  experience,  for 
the  ideal  we  hold  up  as  a  type  exceeds  what  our  ex- 
perience gives  of  virtue  and  justice.  The  "cate- 
gorical imperative"  comes  not  of  experience. 

THE    ESSENTIALS     OF    KANTIANISM 

I  shall  try  now  to  sum  up  what  might  be  called 
the  essentials  of  the  Kantian  philosophy:  In  deal- 
ing with  the  problem  of  knowledge  Kant  was  con- 
cerned with  synthetic  judgments  a  priori,  for  he 
considered  that  such  only  called  for  solution. 
Under  the  head  of  the  Transcendental  Aesthetic 
Kant  plunges  at  once  into  a  discussion  of  pure 
mathematics  and  shows  at  least  to  his  satisfaction 
(not  to  the  satisfaction  of  G.  H.  Lewes)  that  we 
have  in  this  science  a  priori  synthetic  judgments. 
He  even  goes  further  and  says  we  have  them  in 
Physics  and  Metaphysics.  Now  if  the  fundamen- 
tals of  mathematics  are  intuitions  a  priori,  may  we 
not  conclude  that  there  may  be  also  a  priori  conr 
ceptions,  out  of  which,  in  connection  with  these 
pure  intuitions  a  metaphysic  could  be  formed.''  But 
as  the  intuitions  of  space  and  time  are  but  subjec- 
tive forms,  there  is  something  subjective  mingled 
with  all    our    perceptions,    and  we    cannot  know 


88  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

things  save  as  they  appear.  The  Transcendental 
Aesthetic  seeks  to  know  only  what  is  in  the  sensory 
a  priori. 

When  we  reach  the  Transcendental  Analytic  we 
face  the  problem  of  how  to  attain  to  the  pure  con- 
ceptions of  the  understanding.  Aristotle's  catego- 
ries, Kant  said,  were  tabulated  empirically ;  we 
must  derive  them  from  a  common  principle,  and 
that  principle  is,  the  logical  judgment.  Get  the 
modes  or  forms  of  the  judgment  and  we  have  the 
principle  we  seek.  The  twelve  categories  of  Kant, 
he  thinks,  are  conceptions  a  priori,  and  hence  have 
necessary  and  wniversal  validity ;  though  by  them- 
selves they  are  empty  forms  which  have  content 
only  through  the  intuitions  which  come  through 
the  sensory.  Hence,  as  the  categories  are  thus 
empty  save  as  the  sensory  gives  intuitions,  the 
categories  have  validity  only  in  their  application 
to  sensuous  intuitions. 

The  question  as  to  how  sensible  objects  can  be 
subsumed  under  pure  conceptions  of  the  under- 
standing, and  fundamental  principles  formed  from 
them,  calls  forth  the  most  intricate  and  perhaps 
least  satisfactory  thing  in  Kantianism, — viz.,  his 
doctrine  of  the  schematism  of  the  categories  by  the 
pure  intuition.  Time.  He  uses  time  in  this  capac- 
ity because  he  says  it  has  both  a  pu7'e  a  priori  and 
a  sensible  element  about  it,  and  thus  becomes  the 
mediating  "thing,"  or  "thread  for  the  beads  of 
events."  This  schema  is  a  product  of  the  general  or 
universal  imagination.     Quantity  has  for  its  uni- 


KANT  89 

versal  schema  the  series  of  time;  quality  has  the 
content  of  time;  relation  has  the  order  of  time; 
modality  has  the  whole  of  time.  Thus  with  a  priori 
conceptions  and  a  schema  through  which  we  can 
apply  these  conceptions  to  objects,  we  are  fur- 
nished with  a  basis  for  forming  fundamental  meta- 
physical principles.  But  Kant  is  never  tired  of  tell- 
ing us  we  have  no  right  to  use  these  conceptions 
and  principles  save  as  to  things  as  objects  of  pos- 
sible experience. 

In  the  Transcendental  Dialectic  we  have  the 
work  of  "reason"  as  distinct  from  the  understand- 
ing, and  its  peculiar  work  is :  to  "find  the  uncondi- 
tioned for  the  conditioned  knowledge  of  the  under- 
standing, and  to  unify  it."  The  reason  has  no 
reference  to  objects  but  only  to  the  understanding 
and  its  judgments,  hence  its  activity  is  an  imma- 
nent one.  Exalt  the  highest  unity  of  reason  to  an 
actual  object  of  knowledge,  and  we  apply  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  understanding  to  the  unconditioned, 
and  consequently  are  decoyed  beyond  the  limits  of 
reason.  This  is  the  "false  use  of  the  categories" 
as  Kant  thinks,  and  a  prolific  source  of  error. 

Kant  would  overthrow  all  rational  psychology 
as  this  has  been  previously  apprehended.  As  we 
cannot  know  "the  thing  in  itself"  we  cannot  know 
it,  even  though  that  "thing"  be  our  own  soul. 
Kant  thus  reasons :  to  treat  the  Ego  as  object  and 
be  able  to  apply  to  it  categories,  it  must  be  given 
empirically,  in  an  intuition,  for  he  has  already  shut 
us  up  to  the  belief  that  the  categories  are  empty 


90  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

save  as  they  receive  matter  from  the  sensibility,  and 
whether  an  "object"  be  something  without  or  zvith- 
in,  the  sensibiHty  has  already  impressed  its  "form" 
on  the  same  ere  it  reaches  the  understanding,  and 
we  are  forbidden  to  postulate  objective  reality  of 
any  such  an  intuition.  I  can  separate  my  thinking 
ideally  from  my  body,  but  this  does  not  imply  that 
I  can  exist  really  separate  from  my  body.  Psy- 
chology then  furnishes  us  with  no  additional  knowl- 
edge of  self  but  is  useful  as  discipline,  to  save  us 
from  "throwing  ourselves  into  soulless  materialism 
or  into  the  delusion  of  groundless  idealism." 

The  antinomies  of  reason  growing  out  of  an 
attempt  to  establish  determinations  respecting  the 
world,  are  too  well  known  to  give  them  in  any 
detail.  Kant  thought  much  of  his  work  here. 
Others  have  not  shared  his  estimate  with  him. 
Hegel  has  done  his  best  work  in  refuting  this  sec- 
tion of  Kant's  Critique. 

Under  the  head  of  the  pure  reason  and  the  idea 
of  God,  Kant  discusses  the  ontological,  the  cosmo- 
logical,  the  theological  or  physico-theological  ar- 
guments— and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  idea 
of  a  Supreme  Being  is  nothing  other  than  a  regu- 
lative principle  of  the  reason.  We  can  act  "as  if" 
there  were  a  God,  but  the  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason  goes  no  further.  Kant  has  had  in  mind 
all  the  while  to  chastise  reason,  in  that  it  has  been 
presumptions :  the  age  of  Enlightment  had  made  a 
god  of  "Reason."  The  Practical  Reason  will  give 
to  the  intuitions  of  the  soul  what  Romanticism  was  * 


KANT  91 

calling  for  and  faith  may  affirm  what  reason  must 
remain  an  agnostic  concerning. 

The  Practical  Reason  has  to  do  with  the  deter- 
mination of  the  will.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
cognizableness  of  objects.  Freedom  is  an  a  priori 
fact  of  inner  experience.  But  free  will  works 
through  its  acts  upon  the  sensory,  and  there  must 
be  a  point  of  contact  between  the  two.  This  is  the 
basis  for  the  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason. 

In  the  Analytic  Kant  starts  with  freedom  as 
the  simple  "form"  of  our  actions.  But  experience 
or  the  empirical  gives  matter  to  the  empty  form — 
in  the  desire  for  pleasure  and  the  dread  of  pain. 
The  categorical  imperative  is  the  necessary  law  of 
freedom  binding  upon  all  men,  and  regulates  men 
in  regard  to  the  variations  which  arise  in  their  re- 
lations to  pleasure  and  pain.  The  highest  principle 
of  morality  is :  so  act  that  the  maxims  of  thy  will 
can  at  the  same  time  be  valid  as  the  principle  of  a 
universal  lawgiving. 

The  impulse  impelling  the  will  to  act  comform- 
ably  to  the  highest  moral  law  is  the  moral  law 
itself  apprehended  and  revered,  and  no  mere  im- 
pulse to  happiness.  Kant's  morality  was  most  se- 
vere: he  said  if  we  do  that  which  is  moral  for  the  • 
sake  of  law  we  have  legality  and  not  morality. 
Reverence  for  the  moral  law  is  the  single  feeling 
befitting  man. 

In  the  Dialectic  of  the  Practical  Reason  Kant 
atones  for  what  he  has  left  undone  in  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason.    When  we  ask,  What  is  the  high- 


92  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

est  good?  we  find  in  reply  that  it  is  the  highest 
happiness  joined  to  the  highest  virtue.  But  the 
highest  virtue  cannot  exist  in  this  hfe,  both  because 
of  the  union  of  soul  and  body,  and  because  of  the 
brevity  of  hfe:  hence  we  are  bound  to  postulate 
the  inunortality  of  the  soul — it  must  have  time  into 
which  to  develop  in  virtue.  And  the  highest  happi- 
ness can  never  be  experienced  save  from  the  as- 
sumption of  a  God  who  knows  our  nature  and  the 
demands  of  the  same.  Hence  we  are  bound  to  pos- 
tulate a  God.  What  the  Pure  Reason  therefore 
could  not  prove  the  Practical  Reason  affirms. 

The  Critique  of  the  Judgment  discusses  the  aes- 
thetical  and  theological  sense,  and  is  a  kind  of 
bridge  between  the  two  other  Critiques.  He  calls 
this  last  Critique  that  of  "Judgment,"  because  in 
the  narrower  sense  it  establishes  a  relation  between 
things  which  have  nothing  in  common.  "Beauty 
does  not  inhere  in  objects;  it  does  not  exist  apart 
from  the  aesthetic  sense ;  it  is  the  product  of  this 
sense  as  time  and  space  are  products  of  the  theo- 
retical sense." 

Here  we  find  Kant  with  his  principle  with  which 
we  started  out  in  these  characterizations  of  his 
teaching  subjectively  binding  us;  and  struggle  as 
we  will,  aspire  as  we  will,  (and  Kant  allows  us 
to  do  both)  the  mind  prescribes  law  and  the  mmd 
makes  beautiful  things  beautiful.  In  an  evil  day 
Kant  said  in  his  first  edition  of  "The  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason"  that  the  Ego  and  the  "thing  in 
itself"  might  be  one  and  the  same  thing.     This 


KANT  93 

hint  to  plunge  Fitchte  and  others  into  the  extreme 
of  making  the  universe  one  substance — God.  Thus 
the  pendulum  swung  to  the  opposite  extreme. 
For  Hume,  whom  Kant  feels  called  upon  to  refute, 
assumed  that  the  universe  was  one  substance,  and 
that  substance  was  matter.  Kant  vainly  pro- 
tested that  the  extreme  Idealism  of  Fichte  had  no 
right  to  claim  Kantianism  as  its  progenitor.  Not- 
withstanding the  severe  denunciations  of  Kant 
against  Fichte  and  his  followers,  the  Idealism  of 
the  latter  will  continue  to  have  its  place  in  the 
History  of  Philosophy  as  a  natural  inference  from 
Kant's  psychology. 


IV 

HEGEL :  THEISTIC  EVOLUTION. 

"A  great  man  condemns  the  world  to  the  task 
of  explaining  him,"  is  an  oft-quoted  saying  of 
Hegel's,  and  may  well  become  the  opening  sentence 
of  an  attempt  to  give  an  exposition  of  Hegelianism 
in  as  simple  a  style  and  in  as  brief  a  compass  as 
may  be  possible. 

Plato  was  a  poet-philosopher;  Aristotle  was  sci- 
entific ;  Kant  was  a  born  metaphysician ;  Hegel  was 
a  theologian  as  well  as  philosopher.  From  one 
standpoint  all  that  Hegel  said  might  be  included 
under  a  comprehensive  dissertation  on  the  text: 
"He  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it."  His  philoso- 
phy reminds  us  of  St.  Paul's  mystic  utterances 
concerning  the  Godhead  in  Christ,  when  He  who 
was  equal  with  the  Father  "emptied  Himself,"  but 
only  to  return,  as  it  were  enriched,  and  take  His 
place  at  the  right  hand  of  the  majesty  on  high. 
Before  Hegel  is  condemned  for  his  paradoxes  and 
contradictions,  it  were  well  to  ask  if  Paul  has  not 
been  guilty  of  similar  offenses.  Can  a  man  deal 
with  the  truth  in  its  entirety,  see  unity  in  variety, 
overreach  the  merely  passing,  including  the  prob- 
lem of  evil — and  not  seem  to  contradict  himself? 
Hegel  is  one  of  the  philosophers  who  undertook  to 
present  a  philosophy  to  the  world  that  would  in- 
clude everything  in  it,  and  in  the  universe.  Aris- 
totle took  up   separate   sciences,   or   indeed  made 

94 


HEGEL  95 

them;  he  wrote  on  all  subjects,  and  thus  produced 
a  sort  of  encyclopedia.  Hegel  assumed  to  have 
discovered  a  Method, — a  key  to  knowledge,  which 
when  applied,  would,  if  not  unlock  all  mysteries, 
at  least  place  everything  in  heaven  and  earth  upon 
what  might  be  called  a  rational  basis. 

George  Frederick  Hegel  was  born  at  Stuttgart, 
the  capital  of  Wiirtenburg,  on  27th  of  August,  'Sf 
1770.  This  was  the  year  in  which  Kant  published 
his  famous  "Dissertation"  and  was  made  full  pro- 
fessor at  Konigsberg.  Hegel  was  born  eleven  years 
after  Schiller  and  five  years  before  Schelling.  The 
Swabians  of  Germany,  to  whom  Hegel  belonged, 
have  been  called  the  "Scots  of  the  Fatherland." 
Their  peculiarities  are  shrewdness  and  simplicity, 
religious  enthusiasm  and  speculative  free-thinking. 

As  a  boy  Hegel  was  characterized  as  "thor- 
oughly teachable,"  but  not  remarkable  for  bril- 
liancy— save  to  take  prizes  because  of  his  patient 
application  to  study.  He  was  early  designed  for 
the  Church  by  his  parents,  and  was  sent  to  the 
seminary  of  Tubingen  to  prepare  himself  for  the 
ministry.  Before  this,  however,  he  had  been  much 
influenced  by  his  reading  of  Greek  poetry,  and  his 
experience  at  Tiibingen  was  colored  in  much  by 
this  decided  influence.  Greek  art  came  to  be 
regarded  by  Hegel  as  the  vision  of  a  realized  har- 
mony of  existence,  and  occasioned  the  young  stu- 
dent many  a  rude  shock,  as  he  saw  life  and  even 
Christianity  in  Europe. 

Kant   was  the  rising   star  in  philosophy   when 


96  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Hegel  was  a  Tubingen  student ;  but  it  is  said  that 
none  of  the  professors  at  the  institution  understood 
Kant  sufficiently  to  teach  him  sympathetically. 
Hegel  was  therefore  forced  to  think  his  own  way 
through  philosophy,  and  left  the  seminary  with 
the  singular  recommendation  from  one  of  his  pro- 
fessors, that  "Hegel  was  a  fine  student,  well  versed 
in  literature  generally,  but  deficient  in  philosophy." 

In  considering  the  making  of  Hegel,  which 
follows  here  in  order, — for  the  next  six  years  may 
be  said  to  have  decided  his  course  and  line  of 
thought — it  is  well  to  note  what  might  be  called 
his  remote  and  proximate  intellectual  antecedents. 
It  is  a  maxim  of  Hegel's  that  nothing  is  to  be  con- 
sidered by  itself — apart  from  that  to  which  it  is 
related.  Surely  a  man  cannot  be  so  considered, 
and  especially  a  man  Uving  when  Hegel  did,  and 
the  inheritor  of  all  that  was  his. 

Hegelis  Platonic  in  temper,  so  far  as  that  tem- 
per gives  itself  to  theory  as  against  scientific  invesr 
tigation.  He  is  like  Plato  an  idealist,  but  certainly 
not  like  him,  a  dualist.  In  reading  Hegel  one  at 
pnce  thinks  of  Platonic  "ideas,"  for  we  are  told 
/that  "nothing  exists  but  for  thought  and  as  a  man- 
ifestation of  thought;  that  spirit  is  the  reason  of 
/nature,  and  mind  the  key  to  matter." 

In  the  formulating  of  his  theory  of  ideas  Plato 
appears  again  to  be  Hegel's  forerunner.  In  the 
dialogues  "Parmenides"  and  the  "Sophist"  we  have 
almost  Hegelian  language  in  the  subjects  discussed, 
viz.,    Being,    Not-being,    Motion,    Becoming.      If 


HEGEL  97 

Hegel  sympathized  with  the  Heraclitan  element 
in  Plato,  he  was  none  the  less  Platonic  for  that. 

With  the  consistent  contradiction  that  we  see 
throughout  Hegel  he  was  not  less  Aristotelian  than 
Platonic.  When  we  recall  that  Aristotle  conceived 
reality  as  matter  becoming  real  by  acquiring 
"form"  from  mind,  we  have  made  a  juncture  be- 
tween Hegel  and  Aristotle  which  is  vital.  It  has 
been  well  said:  "Add  Aristotle's  conception  of 
movement  to  Plato's  conception  of  ideas  as  consti- 
tuting reality  and  you  have  something  very  much 
like  Hegel's  Logic." 

The  Greeks  left  a  dualism  unreconciled,  and  Des- 
cartes, in  the  opening  of  the  period  of  Modem 
Philosophy,  emphasized  it  as  the  most  notable  fea- 
ture in  his  scheme.  Mind  is  the  purely  active  sub- 
stance and  matter  the  purely  passive — this  is  the 
Cartesian  platform.  Out  of  this  naturally,  as  by 
reaction,  sprang  the  teaching  of  Spinoza,  whose 
mind  was  intoxicated  with  the  idea  of  unity.  We 
have  according  to  Spinoza  one  substance,  but  it  is 
broken  into  two  forms  as  we  know  it,  thought  and 
extension.  Hegel's  terse  way  of  defining  his  posi- 
tion as  against  the  monism  of  Spinoza  is :  "Not 
substance  but  subject."  Hegel  believes  in  unity  as 
strongly  as  Spinoza  does ;  still  while  differences  do 
but  suppose  a  unity  as  of  substance,  that  unity,  as 
a  subject,  breaks  up  into  differences  which  consti- 
tute the  main  outlines  of  reality. 

When  we  consider  the  proximate  antecedents  of 
Hegel  we  approach  what  must  be  treated  with  more 


98  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

care  and  at  greater  length,  for  much  that  seems 
mysterious  in  our  philosopher  will  disappear  when 
he  is  shown  in  his  environment — his  agreements 
and  disagreements  with  those  who  immediately  pre- 
ceded him  or  were  his  early  co-laborers. 

During  the  six  years  that  might  be  said  to  have 
enabled  Hegel  to  "find  himself"  he  was  a  tutor  first 
at  Berne,  Switzerland,  and  then  at  Frankfort,  Ger- 
many. The  influence  of  Greek  poetry  has  been 
already  alluded  to  as  being  the  greatest  single  in- 
fluence upon  Hegel  in  his  university  days.  Bear- 
ing in  mind  that  he  was  educated  for  the  Church 
and  had  not  in  his  six  "wander  years"  ceased  to 
regard  himself  as  a  theologian  rather  than  a  phi- 
losopher, it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Hegel  di- 
rected his  attention  at  the  first  rather  to  the  more 
concrete  and  practical  matters  connected  with 
philosophy — such  as  the  history  of  it  and  its  bear- 
ing on  ethics — than  to  abstract  metaphysics. 

Twp  Ipflding  principles  were  from  the  first  in 
Hegel's  mind,  viz.,  the  idea  of  freedom,  or  self-de- 
termination; the  other,  the  idea  of  man's  life  as 
an  organic  unity,  with  its  two  phases,  natural  and  ■ 
spiritual,  which  cannot  be  separated  from  each 
other  without  losing  all  their  meaning  and  value. 
The  first  idea  came  of  the  Reformation,  with  its 
emancipating  influence,  and  might  be  said  to  be 
part  and  parcel  of  the  18th  century  Enlighten- 
ment. Its  exponents,  in  part  or  in  transformed 
state,  were  Rousseau,  Kant  and  Fichte.  In  Rous- 
seau and  Kant  we  find  an  attempt  to  develop  this 


HEGEL  99 

abstract  principle  of  freedom  into  a  social  system 
without  altering  its  abstract  or  negative  character. 
Rousseau  held  to  the  doctrine  of  individualism, 
with  universal  reason  as  merely  a  common  element 
in  natures  otherwise  unlike,  rather  than  a  prin- 
ciple binding  together  differences  and  thus  mak- 
ing organic  unity.  With  Kant  the  "conscious- 
ness of  self"  was  the  thing  common  to  all  men 
and  which  makes  community  between  them  pos- 
sible; and  self-determination  he  considered  the 
basis  of  all  morality.  But  between  Kant's  abstract 
or  general  ideas  and  the  desires  and  capacities 
which  determine  the  prticular  relations  of  men  to 
each  other  and  to  the  world,  there  was  no  connec- 
tion.    His  morality,  as  Hegel  saw  it,  was  soulless. 

With  Schelling  and  Fichte,  Hegel  was  in  more 
agreement.  It  is  well  known  that  the  first  was  He- 
gel's fellow-worker  in  philosophy  for  a  time.  To 
the  latter  he  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  for  the 
hint  concerning  the  celebrated  "method"  that  was 
to  Hegel  the  key  to  a  solution  of  his  philosophical 
difficulty. 

Keeping  our  minds  upon  the  end  Hegel  had  in 
view,  viz.,  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  principles 
above  referred  to,  and  remembering  that  his  early 
study  of  Greek  poetry  and  art  had  revealed  to  him 
what  seemed  to  be  a  reconciliation  of  heart  and 
reason,  of  the  universal  and  the  particular,  and 
that  at  this  period  of  Hegel's  life  he  regarded 
Christianity  as  a  failure,  and  said  it  was  a  "system 
which  can  make  men  good  only  if  they  are  goodj 


\^<iy^ 


\^ 


<u 


100  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

already" — we  understand  how  he  broke  with  his 
friend  Schelhng  and  with  Fichte.  The  first  of 
these  would  grant  to  a  favored  few,  prophets  and 
poets,  to  rise  to  the  point  of  seeing  reconciliation ; 
while  the  latter  said  that  moral  turpitude  hindered 
man's  rising  to  true  intellectual  perception.  Hegel 
espouses  the  cause  of  man  and  mind  and  says :  "I 
hold  it  one  of  the  best  signs  of  the  times  that  hu- 
manity has  been  presented  to  its  own  eyes  as  worthy 
of  reverence.  It  is  a  proof  that  the  nimbus  is  van- 
ishing from  the  heads  of  the  oppressors  and  gods 
of  the  earth.  Philosophers  are  now  proving  the 
dignity  of  man,  and  the  people  will  soon  learn  to 
feel  it,  and  not  merely  to  ask  humbly  for  those 
rights  of  theirs  which  have  been  trampled  in  the 
dust,  but  to  resume  and  to  appropriate  them  for 
themselves."  Further:  "He  who  has  so  much  to 
say  of  the  incomprehensible  stupidity  of  mankind, 
who  elaborately  demonstrates  that  it  is  the  greatest 
folly  for  a  people  to  have  such  prejudices,  who  has 
always  on  his  tongue  the  watchwords  of  'enlight- 
enment,' 'knowledge  of  mankind,'  'progress  and 
perfectibility  of  the  species' — is  but  a  vain  babbler 
of  the  Aufklarung,  and  a  vender  of  universal  medi- 
cines— one  who  feeds  himself  with  empty  words, 
and  ignores  the  hol}^  and  tender  web  of  human 
affections." 

Dissatisfied  with  the  Enlightment,  dissatisfied 
with  the  philosophers  of  the  day,  dissatisfied  with 
the  Church  as  he  saw  it  and  understood  it,  Hegel 
was,  if  we  give  him  credit  for  sincerity,  forging 


HEGEL  101 

his  way  to  what  would  be  a  philosophy  and  a  re- 
ligion which  should  do  justice  to  the  whole  man, 
RearL  arid  head,  and  appeal  to  the  people  by  its 
x^ry  reasonableness.  Singular  indeed  that  the  man 
who  is  regarded  as  the  most  obscure  of  all  modem 
philosophers,  and  who  is  supposed  to  be  obscure 
for  obscurity's  sake,  should  have  had  in  mind  such 
aims  as  his  words  lead  us  to  infer  he  cherished. 
Has  he  been  misunderstood,  or  was  all  this  seem- 
ing interest  in  humanity  only  in  seeming? 

During  the  last  years  of  Hegel's  residence  at 
Frankfort,  his  terminology  changed  and  with  it 
his  antagonism  to  Christianity  seemed  to  vanish. 
Hitherto  Hegel  had  used  the  words  "life"  and 
"love"  to  express  the  highest  kind  of  social  unity. 
He  now  substitutes  the  word  "spirit."  From  this 
word  he  never  afterwards  departs.  "Spirit"  was 
to  Hegel  what  "love"  was  to  Browning — ^the  high- 
est of  all  principles — the  unification  of  the  irrec- 
oncilable. To  Hegel  the  term  "spirit"  seemed  to 
convey  "the  idea  of  antagonism  overcome,  contra- 
diction reconciled,  unity  reached  through  struggle 
and  conflict  of  elements,  which,  in  the  first  aspect 
of  them,  are  opposed  to  each  other."  Further- 
more, and  very  important  to  know,  this  unity  can- 
not be  immediate,  nor  is  it  a  natural  process — it  is 
not  ready-made  from  the  first,  nor  a  something 
which  does  not  at  first  resist  our  minds.  It  must  be- 
gin with  a  distinct  consciousness  of  independence 
to  be  renounced,  and  of  opposition  to  be  overcome. 
Here  is  the  germ  thought  that  was  hinted  at  in  the 


102  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

beginning  of  this  chapter — the  idea  of  losing  one's 
life  to  find  it^  or  as  has  been  expressed  in  few  words, 
"djing  to  live." 

Recurring  now  for  a  moment  to  Kant,  we  can 
see  the  point  of  departure  between  him  and  Hegel. 
Kant  left  philosophy  struggling  with  dualism,. 
His  world  of  "thing-in-itself"  was  the  unknown 
element  as  well  as  the  mysterious  unknown — it  was 
not  the  "self"  and  was  really  no  part  of  it — though 
the  conscious  self  did  impress  certain  "forms"  upon 
this  mysterious  "thing."  Furthermore,  Kant 
hinted  at  a  dualism  again  when  he  said  that  "man's 
conduct  was  phenomenally  determined  but  nomen- 
ally  free." 

In  addition  to  this  expressed  or  implied  dualism, 
Kant  was  agnostic,  save  that  he  brought  in  "faith" 
or  what  might  be  called  "intuition,"  which  affirmed 
what  reason  could  not  grapple  with.  To  Hegel 
this  seemed  equivalent  to  saying  on  Kant's  part: 
I  "There  is  a  unity  but  I  cannot  find  it — hence  I 
'affirm  what  I  cannot  discover."  Indeed  Hegel  for 
a' time  took  refuge  in  what  Schelling  never  de- 
parted from, — that  "philosophy  must  end  in  re- 
ligion, because  philosophy  is  thought,  and  thought 
always  involves  finitude  and  opposition — e.  g.,  the 
opposition  of  the  subject  and  object,  of  the  mind 
that  thinks  to  matter  that  does  not  think."  His  is 
the  doctrine  of  religious  "intuition"  or  the  feeling 
of  a  unity  which  cannot  be  rationally  discovered 
nor  expressed. 
Hegel's  final  position  was  that  it  is  not  enough  to 


HEGEL  103 

say  there  are  organisms  in  the  world,  but  the  whole 
world  must  be  conceived  as  an  organism.  All  his- 
tory and  nature  must  be  seen  to  have  the  "unity 
of  a  poem."  In  such  a  theory  optimism  must  be 
reached  not  by  exclusion  of  evil,  but  by  overcoming 
it.  "All  things  must  work  together  for  good" — 
not  only  "to  those  who  love  God,"  but  for  man 
and  the  world — which  is  Browning's  platform  ex- 
actly. 

We  are  now  in  position  to  treat  of  Hegel's  sys- 
tem in  something  of  detail.  An  outline  of  it  might 
be  given  thus : 

His  aim  was  to  unfold  the  doctrine  of  the  Abso- 
lute. In  doing  so  his  method  is  that  of  "progres- 
sive definitions."  But  his  progress  is  that  of  a 
spiral  railway. 

Reality  is  a  system.  By  this  is  meant  that  real- 
ity is  conceived  as  a  unity.  This  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  Pantheism  of  the  ordinary  type. 
i  This  system  regards  unity  as  an  objective  fact  and 
differences  as  mere  illusion.  To  Hegel  existence  is 
necessarily  revealed  not  simply  as  a  unity  but  as 
a  unity  of  distinguished  and  related  parts — a  sys- 
tem. His  favorite  illustration  (and  he  was  happy 
in  using  illustrations)  to  indicate  the  unity  of 
the  world,  was  the  magnet  which  when  broken  into 
two  parts  did  not  give  the  one  the  south  and  the 
other  the  north  pole — but  each  was  both  north  and 
south.  One  thinks  of  Paul's  paragraph  on  the 
"body"  in  his  letter  to  the  Corinthians  as  he  reads 
Hegel's  plea  for  the  universe,  as  a  system,  with  its 


104.  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

parts,  each,  however  seemingly  small  or  unimport- 
ant, necessary  to  the  whole,  yet  notliing  if  sepa- 
rated from  the  body.  In  his  treatment  of  this  world 
of  reality,  Hegel  begins  with  the  world  of  thought 
— his  Logic :  next  he  takes  up  the  world  of  reality 
in  what  we  call  Nature,  seemingly  estranged  from 
thought — his  Philosophy  of  Nature:  finally  the 
world  of  reality  consciously  penetrated  by  thought 
■ — which  is  his  Philosophy  of  Spirit — the  culmina- 
tion of  his  Philosophy  as  a  whole. 

Reality  is  a  graReSt  sysTemT  Here  we  meet 
something  like  the  hierarchy  in  Plato's  Ideas. 
Every  part  of  the  Hegelian  system  is  important, 
but  not  every  part  is  equally  so.  The  lower  gives 
place  to  the  higher.  The  life-blood  of  the  slain 
passes  into  the  conquerors.  We  have  "lower"  cate- 
gories and  "higher."  The  whole  is  a  scheme  in 
•  which  evolution  is  the  distinguishing  factor.  It  is 
just  here  that  Hegel  is  to  some  and  perhaps  to 
most  people  contradictory,  or  at  least  unsatisfac- 
tory. He  is  apt  to  say  of  a  thing  or  a  state  or  a 
process — "true  in  part,"  "false  in  part."  From 
one  standpoint  that  which  is  part  of  a  graded  sys- 
tem may  seem  to  be  "cause,"  "effect,"  "end," — yet 
from  another  simply  a  link  in  a  chain  or  "nothing'' 
if  entirely  abstracted  from  its  relations. 

Reality  is  a  system  or  union  of  opposites.  This 
is  the  heart  of  Hegelianism.  .Truth  is  the  synthe- 
sis o£.a11- possible  Ijiilf  J^utha.  It  is  reached  when 
we  have  been  tossed  from  aspect  to  aspect  until  we 
are  thrown  into  the  heart  of  things.    Kant  had  said 


HEGEL  105 

that  where  Time  and  Space  were  the  ruling 
"forms"  of  perception  we  should  expect  to  encoun- 
ter contradictions.  Sometimes  Hegel  shows  how 
one  phase  of  a  truth  passes  into  its  contradictory ; 
again  he  shows  how  the  thing  as  it  stands  is  s^Zf- 
contradictory.  First  thoughts  cannot  be  -more 
than  a  rough  one-sided  sketch  of  the  reality  of 
things.  The  aspects  of  truth  come  to  us  in  definite 
sequence ;  but  finality  is  impossible  unless  in  abso- 
lute philosophy,  or  perhaps  in  the  totality  of  the 
process  of  the  universe.  Here  again  we  think  of 
Browning,  as  one  who  while  a  believer  in  evolution 
said  the  truth  was  to  be  reached  not  by  judging 
the  oak  by  the  acorn,  but  the  acorn  by  the  oak. 
Get  the  whole  process,  see  the  entire  development, 
and  then  judge  the  part  the  seed  played,  or  what 
the  earth,  air,  water  must  have  given.  Hegel  will 
not  give  a  categorical  reply  to  many  questions 
which  it  Avould  seem  should  merit  it:  he  is  apt 
to  say  "either"  or  "both,  if  you  please,"  and  this 
is  exasperating  to  men  of  the  George  H.  Lewes 
type.  And  yet,  was  not  this  something  of  the  atti- 
tude of  Christ  to  many  questions.''  The  more  men 
think,  the  more  they  are  forced  to  see  that  behind 
much  which  the  world  regards  as  contradiction  lies 
a  unity.  Hegel  thought  he  saw  a  unity  that  anni- 
hilated all  contradiction.  It  is  easy  to  see  in  the 
light  of  this  attitude  how  Hegel  would  begin  with 
Logic — not  the  conventional  logic  of  the  schools, 
but  one  made  by  Hegel  himself,  which  disregarded 
the  established  laws  of  "contradiction,"  "identity" 
and  the  like. 


106  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Reality  is  a  work  of  thought.  This  is  the 
crowning  process,  or  last  in  the  series.  As  I 
have  said,  Hegel  did  not  regard  the  unity 
he  was  striving  for  as  something  which  came  to  the 
mind  immediately  or  naturally.  He  had  no  notion 
that  a  man's  "first  thoughts  were  his  best 
thoughts."  It  was  on  the  other  hand  by  severe  - 
discipline,  and  by,  in  a  sense,  self-abnegation,  that^^ 
a  man  came  to  see  the  world  as  it  really  is.  Qne 
.must  have  such  power  of  abstraction  as  to  consider 
himself  apart  from  himself — to  place  himself  in 
with  the  world  of  men  and  of  "things,"  and  leave 
pimself  there,  while  at  the  same  time  he  stands 
apart  from  all  and  observes  the  world's  onward 
movement.  Kant  had  said  the  world  of  our  knowl- 
edge is  a  creation  of  thought.  Hegel  goes  further 
and  states  that  reality  is  that  which  thought  ap- 
prehends, conceives  or  produces. 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  that  Hegel  was  a  child  of 
his  time  in  a  sense,  as  was  inevitable.  We  have 
seen  that  he  was  a  German  ideaHst,  with  elements 
that  connected  him  with  the  great  Greek  philoso- 
phers. We  see  him  dissatisfied  with  philosophy  and 
religion,  as  he  saw  them  in  his  early  days.  We  see 
him  proposing  to  apply  a  "method"  which  he  as- 
sumed would  give  unity  to  what  had  hitherto  been 
contradictory,  and  in  so  doing  he  came  to  the 
problem  by  regarding  reality  as  a  system,  and  as  a 
graded  system,  with  a  union  of  opposites,  and  the 
whole  the  work  of  thought — but  thought  a^  jnove- 
ment  and  process.  z' 


HEGEL  107 

His  work  as  a  whole,  said  to  be  the  most  compre- 
hensive ever  undertaken  by  man,  as  well  as  the 
most  ambitious,  begins  naturally  with  his  Logic, 
and  proceeds  taJiis  philosophy  of  Spirit. 

HegeVs  Logic:  Hegel's  logic  is  both  logic  and 
metaphysics,  ^s  has  been  said  already  he  begins 
with  logic  because  he  unmakes  the  conventional 
work  on  that  subject  which  the  world  inherited  from  . 
Aristotle.  The  great  pupil  of  Plato  laid  down  the 
**Law  of  Contradiction"  as  the  highest  law  of 
thought  as  opposed  to  the  Heraclitan  principle  of 
universal  flux,  and  maintained  that  things  are  defi- 
nitely what  they  are,  in  their  isolation,  and  must-, 
_be  kept  in  their  definiteness,  no  matter  how  they 
may  be,  in  some  instances,  related.  "^"  must  not 
be  "tw)*-^."  No  surprise  then  that  the  world 
rubbed  its  eyes  and  wondered  if  it  heard  what  was 
really  said  when  Hegel  contradicted  the  law  of 
contradiction.  And  yet,  if  we  sympathetically 
look  into  his  meaning,  there  is  at  least  an  element 
of  truth  in  even  the  famous  saying  that  "being 
and  non-being  are  the  same." 

What  Hegel  contends  for  is  that  things  in  this 
world  are  not  absolutely  differentiated.  Kant  had 
said  that  thought  made  the  world  as  we  see  it, 
Hegel  says  that  absolute  difference  is  something 
which  cannot  exist  within  the  intelligible  world. 
We  can  embrace  in  our  thought  the  widest  antag- 
onism consistent  with  the  unity  of  thought  itself, 
but  antagonism  inconsistent  with  the  unity  of 
thought  is  itself  unthinkable. 


108  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Starting  with  the  position  that  the  world  is  an 
organism,  and  that  uniiX-l?— ^t  the  bottom  of  all 
differences,  Hegel  thinks  there  are  no  seeming  an- 
tagonisms which  cannot  be  reconciled.  If  some 
one  says,  "every  finite  thing  is  itself  and  no  other, '^ 
Hegel  replies,  "this  is  true  within  limits,"  and  then 
i  goes  on  to  show  that  hecaiisfi^  a  thing  is  finite  it  is 
by.  its  very  nature  related  to  something  else  which 
limits  it,  and  thus  it  contains  in  itself  the  principle 
of  its  own  destruction.  Its  very  existence  is  there- 
fore contradictory,  for  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  any 
more  than  it  may  be  said  not  to  be.  This  then  is 
the  basis  for  saying  that  every  definite  thought  or 
thing  includes  its  negative.  Definiteness,  finitude, 
determination  have  their  affirmative  or  positive 
meanings,  but  also  involve  their  own  negation. 
The  whole  truth  about  a  thing  cannot  be  expressed 
once  for  all  in  a  proposition.  Neither  assertion 
nor  denial  contains  the  complete  truth.  To  say 
then  that  "being  and  not-being  are  the  same"  is 
to  say  that  beneath  differences  and  contradictions 
there  is  a  unity,  and  in  the  case  of  "being,"  Hegel 
says  the  word  implies  both  the  most  fundamental 
and  at  the  same  time  the  poorest  of  all  conceptions 
— just  because  it  is  the  most  general  and  universal, 
so  the  idea  that  contains  least — in  fact,  isolated,  it 
contains  nothing,  or  is  nothing. 

Being  has  no  differentiations ;  it  is  above  set  dif- 
ferences ;  all  qualities  are  thought  out  of  it. 

In  dealing  with  the  categories,  Hegel  begins 
with  Being,  as  the  most  fundamental,  and  as  the 


HEGEL  109 

one  which  contains  all  the  others,  in  the  sense  that 
the  others  are  but  transformations  of  this  funda- 
mental idea.  Yet,  be  it  understood  here,  that, 
while  Hegel  says  there  is  an  order  to  be  obsei'ved, 
which  must  be  followed  in  considering  the  cate- 
gories,— the  mind  must  "abandon  itself  to  its 
spontaneous  self-activity," — still,  like  the  evolu- 
tionist in  science,  the  lower  types  serve  to  be  as 
stepping-stones  to  the  higher,  and  when  the  idea  of 
self-consciousness  is  reached,  we  have  that  which 
contains  all  the  categories  and  the  all-inclusive 
truth. 

If  it  is  asked,  how  does  being  which  is,  in  a 
sense,  nothing,  become  anything  or  everything,  the 
clue  or  solution  is  found  in  the  idea  of  becoming 
and  in  the  very  contradiction  which  in  turn  be- 
comes a  principle  of  force  As  has  been  said.  Be- 
ing isolated,  or  separated  from  all  relations,  re- 
mains barren,  fruitless,  powerless.  But  Being  as 
the  fundamental  category,  from  which  everything 
is  evolved,  and  in  which  everything  is  implied,  by 
means  of  the  very  contradiction  which  puzzles  us  is 
resolved  into  the  notion  of  ''becoming'^ — similar  to 
the  notion  of  Aristotle  concerning  the  non-exist- 
ence of  matter  made  actual  by  means  of  "form."  If 
the  solution  of  one  difficulty  simply  creates  another, 
Hegel  solves  the  second  as  he  did  the  first — cecojii, 
ciling-^ontradictions  by  unity — all  the  while  as- 
suming nature  to  be  "the  self-development  of 
thought  and  thought  as  nature  becoming  conscious 
of  itself." 


u> 


6^1  C 


110  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

If  in  all  this  one  asks,  "Where  is  consistency?" 
Hegel  replies  that  it  does  not  exist.  Syllogistic 
logic  is  the  logic  of  argument  and  its  merit  is  to 
secure  self -consistency.  This  is  the  logic  of  the 
prize-ring.  Hegel  will  not  for  a  moment  say  that 
self -consistency  is  the  main  concern  of  logic.  There 
is  no  such  fixity  in  healthy  unpolemical  human 
thought.  If  logical  premises  were  infallibly  true, 
then  self -consistency  would  be  a  sufficient  rule.  But 
logical  premises  are  not  given  exhaustively,  conse- 
quently self-consistency  has  no  meaning  for 
"thought  as  thought."  Abstract  (in  the  sense  of 
one-sided)  thought  is  vicious,  if  it  be  anything 
more  than  a  passing  stage  towards  a  fully  con- 
scious grasp  of  the  many-sided  coherence  of  real- 
ity. The  true  movement,  then,  is  not  from  discord 
to  self -consistency,  but  from  vagueness  to  defi- 
NiTENESs.  This  last  phrase  perhaps  as  fully  ex- 
presses what  Hegel  means  by  his  "method"  or 
process  as  any  words  that  could  be  used.  He  illus- 
trates this  principle  by  reference  to  perception. 
No  perception  is  entirely  new.  Each  is  a  fresh  in- 
stance of  what  our  past  intellectual  life  consisted 
in.  We  have  ever  before  us  a  vague,  half-formed 
picture  of  what  the  world  is.  Each  new  experi- 
ence is  but  a  new  touch  to  the  picture. 

We  see  Hegel's  trend,  even  if  we  can  not  agree 
with  him.  We  are  also  disposed  to  say  of  him  what 
he  says  continually  of  what  men  have  considered 
established  truths :  "True,  in  a  sense."  One  must 
wonder  though  what  becomes  of  his  own  reason- 


HEGEL  111 

ing  when  self-consistency  is  so  summarily  dealt 
with.  But  this  characterization  is  concerned  with 
presenting  Hegel's  views  so  as  to  make  them  in- 
telligible rather  than  with  a  criticism  of  those 
views. 

The  first  division  of  logic  according  to  Hegel 
has  to  do  with  the  categories  in  which  relativity  is 
not  EXPRESSED — such  as  Being,  Quality,  Quantity. 
While  these  involve,  they  do  not  immediately  ex- 
press or  even  suggest  any  relation  of  the  object  to 
which  they  are  applied  to  any  other  object. 

The  second  main  division  will  have  to  do  with 
such  categories  as  Essence  and  Existence,  Force 
and  Expression,  Substance  and  Accident,  Cause 
and  Effect.  These  drive  us  to  go  beyond  the  ob- 
ject with  which  we  are  dealing,  and  to  connect  it 
with  other  objects. 

The  last  main  division  will  have  to  do  with  the 
categories  such  as  those  of  final  cause  and  organic 
unity,  by  which  the  object  is  characterized  as  re- 
lated to  intellect,  or  having  in  it  the  self-deter- 
mined nature  of  which  the  intelligence  is  the  high- 
est type. 

The  general  argument  of  the  logic  is:  Reality, 
which  at  first  is  presented  to  us  as  the  Being  of 
things  which  are  regarded  as  standing  by  them- 
selves, determined  in  quality  and  quantity,  having 
no  necessary  relations  to  each  other — comes  in 
the  process  of  thought  to  be  known  as  an  endless 
aggregate  of  essentially  related  and  transitory  ex- 
istences, each  of  which  exists  only  as  it  determines 


112  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

and  is  determined  by  the  others,  according  to  uni- 
versal laws — and  finally  is  discovered  to  lie  in  a 
world  of  objects,  each  and  all  of  which  exist  only 
in  so  far  as  they  exist  for  intelligence,  and  in  so  far 
as  intelligence  is  revealed  or  realized  in  them. 

This  movement  of  thought  is  demonstrated  by 
showing  how  the  categories  of  Being  when  fully 
understood  and  reasoned  out  lead  to  the  categories 
of  Relations,  and  these  in  turn  to  the  categories  of 
Ideal  Unity,  which  corresponds  with  philosophy. 

HegeVs  Philosophy  of  Nature:  Nature  is  to 
Hegel  the  extreme  of  possible  opposition  to  spirit, 
i  but  that  in  turn  through  which  spirit  fully  real- 
lizes  itself.  In  dealing  with  Hegel  as  with  Kant, 
when  we  have  seen  his  "method"  we  have  the  key 
to  his  treatment  of  all  that  follows.  When  the 
Kantian  doctrine  of  Space  and  Time  has  been  fully 
appreciated  and  understood,  Kant  is  comparatively 
easy :  so  if  we  appreciate  the  way  Hegel  looks  upon 
"unity  and  difference,"  "contradiction  and  iden- 
tity"— if  we  see  the  place  "development"  plays  in 
his  system,  and  what  he  means  by  it,  we  can  at  least 
follow  him,  whether  he  is  reasoning  about  things 
mental  or  physical. 

Nature,  independent  of  intelligence,  is  a  process 
fixed  in  the  form  of  an  external  hierarchy  of  ex- 
istences, which  in  their  relation  exhibit  successive 
stages  of  development  by  which  the  object  returns 
to  the  subject.  In  the  inorganic  world  the  ideal 
principle  is  present  as  an  inner  or  hidden  nature  of 
things,  a  law  of  relation  between  parts   external 


HEGEL  113 

to  each  other,  yet  this  principle  manifests  itself 
only  as  these  parts  in  their  changes  continually 
betray  the  secret  of  their  essential  relativity  to 
each  other.  In  the  living  being,  however,  this 
inner  nature  does  not  merely  underlie  the  fixed  dif- 
ference of  external  parts,  but  is  revealed  in  them 
as  a  principle  of  organization.  The  ideality  of 
nature  is  to  Hegel  that  in  which  the  external 
visibly  contradicts  and  refutes  its  own  exter- 
nality. This  idealization  is  imperfect,  as  it  is 
not  conscious  of  itself ;  it  is  not  present  to  the 
living  being,  but  only  to  us.  Nature  rises  to 
self-consciousness  only  in  man,  who  in  turn  is  not 
only  conscious  of  it  but  of  himself  in  distinction 
from  and  in  relation  to  it.  Man  in  his  development 
must  overcome  this  antagonism  between  himself 
and  the  world,  and  so  realize  his  unity  and  the 
unity  of  all  things  and  beings  with  the  absolute 
Spirit,  "in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being,"  and  in  whom  Nature  has  its  being. 

How  can  the  Absolute  transform  itself  into  a 
material  manifold  in  Space  and  Time.'*  Some  one 
has  said  that  it  is  as  hard  for  Hegel  to  think  of 
God  without  nature  as  to  think  of  nature  without 
God.  He  says  we  must  think  that  the  finite  is  not 
AN  utterance  of  the  infinite  but  the  utterance. 
What  "Being"  was  as  a  category  in  logic.  Space 
becomes  in  Hegel's  treatment  of  nature.  It  is  the 
something  and  the  nothing.  It  is  "reality"  and  it 
is  "unreality."  So  with  Time.  We  are  asked  to 
see  in  movement  what  we  saw  hitherto  in  contradic- 


114  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

tion — a  force.  The  movement  from  thought  to 
material  being  is  a  double  one,  viz.,  from  thought 
to  empty  space  and  time,  and  then  from  the  idea 
of  these  back  to  matter. 

All  is  the  Idea  struggling  to  manifest  itself  in 
objectivity.  In  the  lower  forms  of  nature  dumb 
intelligence  is  striving  to  utter  itself ;  at  last  in  the 
higher  forms  it  speaks.  Every  modification  that 
the  Idea  undergoes  in  the  sphere  of  pure  Thought 
it  endeavors  to  express  in  the  sphere  of  Nature. 
Thus  we  have  evolution ;  the  secret  of  the  seeming 
contradiction ;  and  the  final  realization  of  the 
world  in  Reason.  Nature  is  divine  in  principle  but 
not  divine  as  it  exists.  The  Pantheists  say  God  is 
one  with  nature  and  nature  one  with  God.  Hegel 
would  say  that  nature  is  God's  exteriority — the 
passing  of  the  Idea  through  its  imperfection  to 
consciousness  or  to  self-consciousness. 

In  the  process  up  to  self-consciousness,  nature 
passes  through  three  principle  stages: 

Mechanics:  Here  matter  is  found  in  its  most 
universal  form.  Yet  here  we  see  a  tendency  to  life 
or  motion,  and  we  call  it  "gravity."  Gravity  is 
the  desire  of  matter  to  come  to  itself,  and  thus  in 
this  shows  its  first  trace  of  subjectivity.  This 
"trace  of  subjectivity"  rules  in  the  solar  system. 
Hegel  would  say  that  the  world  of  matter  reveals 
thought  or  idea  so  far  as  a  world  could  do  it. 

Physics:  Here  matter  particularizes  itself  in 
a  body,  in  an  individuality.  Mere  matter  possesses 
no  individuality.     In  astronomy  it  is  not  the  bodies, 


HEGEL  115 

so  Hegel  says,  which  interest  us,  but  their  geomet- 
rical relations.  In  astronomy,  however,  matter  has 
found  its  center;  in  Physics  matter  has  found  a 
quality.  To  the  province  of  Physics  belongs  inor- 
ganic nature  with  its  forms  and  reciprocal  rela- 
tions. 

Organics:  Inorganic  nature  destroys  itself  in 
the  chemical  process.  While  the  living  body  is 
ever  on  the  verge  of  passing  over  to  the  chemical 
process,  yet  the  living  body  resists  that  tendency. 
Nature  in  Physics  arises  to  individuality,  nature 
in  organics  rises  to  subjectivity.  This  is  done  as 
follows : 

1.  The  general  image  of  life  in  the  mineral 
kingdom.  But  this  kingdom  is  the  result  of  a 
process  already  past.  The  geological  earth  is  a 
giant  corpse.  The  present  life  that  produces  itself 
eternally  new  breaks  forth  as  the  first  moving  of 
subjectivity  in 

2.  The  organism  of  plants.  Each  part  of  the 
plant  is  the  whole  individual,  each  twig  the  whole 
tree.  Goethe's  discovery  concerning  the  relation  of 
the  leaf  to  the  tree  was  in  line  with  the  thought  of 
Hegel. 

3.  The  animal  kingdom  reaches  still  higher,  as 
Idea  is  seeking  expression  and  manifestation.  In 
its  very  highest  form  we  find  the  Ego  in  man — 
self-conscious.  This  is  the  self -emancipation  from 
nature. 

Just  as  in  the  Logic  we  began  with  Being  and 
worked  our  way  up  to  self-consciousness,  so  here 


116  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

we  come  to  the  same.  The  philosophy  then  of 
Hegel  is  a  "method"— one  which  assumes  to  lead 
to  a  particular  end,  no  matter  where  you  begin. 
The  world  is  an  organism,  a  man  a  microcosm. 
Take  any  road,  you  reach  tJie  Ego. 

Kegel's  philosophy  of  mind 

We  now  come  to  the  last  of  the  three  main  divi- 
sions of  Hegel's  philosophy.  He  had  in  mind 
thesis,  antithesis,  and  synthesis.  He  began  with 
Thought;  then  went  to  Thought  estranged;  then 
to  Thought  returned  to  itself.  Logic  represented 
Thought;  Nature,  Thought  estranged  from  itself; 
Mind,  Thought  returned  to  itself.  Simple  enough, 
as  a  system,  in  its  main  outlines,  but  complicated 
in  its  details  and  unfoldings. 

Hegel  would  say  that  Mind  is  the  truth  of  Na- 
ture. Here  Being  is  removed  from  its  estrange- 
ment and  becomes  identical  with  itself.  The  formal 
essence  of  Mind  therefore  is  freedom — the  power 
to  abstract  itself  from  everything  else;  its  ma- 
terial essence  is  its  capacity  to  manifest  itself  as 
mind — as  rationality. 

But  just  as  Nature  had  its  lower  forms  and 
through  the  lower  proceeded  to  the  higher,  so  mind 
has  its  stages  of  development.  In  its  process  to 
higher  mind,  it  advances  from  that  which  is  of  the 
"earth  earthy,"  to  individuality,  then  from  mere 
individuality  to  a  point  where  it  merges  itself  with 
all  else,  yet  at  the  same  time  has  divested  itself  of 
nature.  This  is  the  awaking  of  the  Ego,  which 
accomplishes     two      ends,    first,     it    creates    the 


HEGEL  11  r 

objective  world;  and  second,  it  awakens  to  con- 
scious subjectivity  only  in  the  objective  world,  and 
in  distinction  from  it.  Consciousness  becomes  self- 
consciousness  by  passing  through  the  stages  of 
sensuous  consciousness,  perception,  and  understand- 
ing, and  convincing  itself  in  this  its  formative  his- 
tory, that  it  has  only  to  do  with  itself,  while  it 
believed  it  had  to  do  with  something  objective. 

Rising  into  the  realm  of  the  universal  conscious- 
ness by  coming  in  contact  with  other  self -conscious- 
nesses, we  have  mind  divested  of  naturalism  and 
mere  subjectivity. 

Mind  is  first  theoretical,  then  practical.  It  is 
theoretical  in  that  it  has  to  do  with  the  rational  as 
something  given ;  it  is  practical  in  the  will.  The 
practical  is  the  "truth  of  the  theoretical,"  to  use 
Hegelian  phraseology.  By  this  Hegel  means  that 
the  theoretical  mind  passes  on  to  the  practical, 
through  the  stages  of  intuition,  representation  and 
thought.  The  Will,  on  the  other  hand,  frees  itself 
into  free  will  through  impulse,  desire,  and  inclina- 
tion. Life  is  a  warfare,  therefore,  and  resistance 
is  not  only  the  law  of  living  and  development,  but 
its  very  essence. 

With  free  will  come  rights.  The  conflict  be- 
tween rights  and  rights  and  will  and  will  results 
in  a  compact,  or  common  will.  In  this  we  see  the 
state  in  embryo.  Under  this  head  Hegel  gives  us 
his  theory  of  government.  Crime  is  individual  will 
coming  into  conflict  with  the  higher  or  common  will, 
and  the  punishment  of  a  criminal  is  not  so  much 


118  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

)vaming  or  vengeance,  but  the  man's  higher  will, — 
his  own  better  wUl  which  belongs  to  him  by  virtue 
of  his  being  a  citizen,  coming  back  on  him  and 
destroying  him.  In  ideal  government  the  individ- 
ual wiU  can  not  come  in  conflict  with  the  higher  or 
common  will. 

Removing  the  opposition  between  the  universal 
and  particular  will,  you  have  the  basis  of  Morality. 
In  morality  self-determination  is  carried  forward 
till  duty  and  virtue  emerge.  Here  we  have  Hegel's 
Ethics  as  before  we  had  his  ideas  of  government. 

The  ethical  mind  is  seen  at  first  in  the  family ; 
this  passes  on  to  civil  society  and  then  to  the  state. 
The  philosophy  of  History,  so  famously  written  up 
by  Hegel,  is  but  the  following  out  of  his  theory  of 
peoples  developing  as  individuals,  and  is  part  of 
the  Hegelian  scheme. 

In  treating  the  Absolute  Mind  Hegel  takes  up 
Aesthetics  and  says  the  Absolute  is  present  to  the 
sensuous  intuition  as  the  Beautiful  or  as  Art.  The 
Beautiful  is  the  appearance  of  the  idea  actualized 
in  the  form  of  a  limited  phenomenon. 

Here  we  have  evolution  again.  The  beginning 
of  Art  is  seen  in  Architecture.  This  belongs  to 
the  symbolic  form  of  Art.  Its  material  is  stone, 
fashioned  according  to  the  laws  of  gravity. 

In  Sculpture  man  advances  from  the  inorganic 
to  the  organic.  Stone  is  given  bodily  form.  The 
stone  in  sculpture  disappears,  as  it  is  cut  to  repre- 
sent body,  the  building  of  the  soul.  Hence  the 
ideal  character  of  sculpture. 


HEGEL  119 

In  Painting  we  make  progress  over  sculpture 
and  represent  the  life  of  the  soul — the  look,  the  dis- 
position, the  heart.  It  is  more  ideal  in  that  it  has 
not  the  dimensions  of  sculpture,  but  appeals  to  the 
imagination  and  deals  with  illusions. 

Music  leaves  off  all  relations.  Its  material  is 
sound.  It  works  exclusively  on  sensation.  Music 
is  the  most  subjective  of  the  arts. 

Poetry  is  the  speaking  art.  In  it  all  other  arts 
return  again.  In  dramatic  poetry  we  see  the  union 
of  all  poetry,  so  in  it  we  see  the  consummation  of 
all  art. 

Poetry  forms  the  transition  from  art  to  religion. 
All  religions  seek  union  of  the  divine  and  human. 
This  was  attempted  in  crude  form  in  the  natural 
religions,  and  attained  to  something  higher  in  the 
religions  of  spirit;  but  attained  its  height  in  the 
Christian  religion.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
with  its  mystery  and  unfoldings,  was  Hegel's  de- 
light. Here  we  close  as  we  began.  The  outgoing 
of  God  in  Christ  and  the  "return"  in  the  form  of 
the  Trinity  as  now  manifested  to  man,  might  well 
represent  Hegel's  Method  and  Philosophy. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS :  THE  SPIRIT  IN 
THE  TREND  OF  THOUGHT 

"The  history  and  development  of  human  ideas 
is  the  most  important,  if  not  the  only  task,  of 
future  philosophy,"  says  Ludwig  Noire.  An  in- 
quiry into  the  persistence  of  ideas,  the  phase  of 
the  subject  I  would  treat,  necessarily  begins  with 
some  investigation  as  to  the  origin  of  ideas. 

Ideas  result  from  the  human  mind  seeking  to 
know  and  to  interpret  its  environment.  Through 
our  senses  we  receive  sensuous  impressions ;  by  some 
mysterious  power  which  has  never  been  understood 
and  probably  never  will  be,  sensations  are  trans- 
muted into,  or  are  the  occasion  of,  what  we  call 
ideas.  In  attempting  to  find  an  explanation  or 
even  a  plausible  hypothesis,  that  will  satisfy  the 
reason  of  man  as  to  the  transmutation  of  a  sense 
impression  into  an  idea,  we  have  theories  as  far 
apart  as  that  of  Kant,  whose  view  has  already 
been  given,  and  the  other  extreme  that  makes 
the  mind  little  more  than  a  mirror  reflecting  the 
objects  of  the  world  about  us.  Modern  philosophy, 
however,  is  inclined  to  stress  the  element  in  knowl- 
edge which  the  mind  contributes,  even  going  so 
far  as  to  assert  that  mere  matter,  in  its  real  nature, 
is  to  us  wholly  unknown.  In  our  contact  with  the 
material  world  we  know  only  sense  impressions 
which  perhaps  have  no    similarity    to  "things  in 

120 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  121 

themselves."  Still,  whatever  theory  of  knowledge 
we  may  accept,  the  statement  made  above  as  to  the 
origin  of  ideas,  is  not  materially  affected. 

Our  sense  impressions,  then,  occasioned  by  our 
environment,  give  us  one  element  in  knowledge; 
reactions,  in  consequence  of  these  impressions 
— i.  e.,  the  self  struggling  to  interpret  objective 
things  as  well  as  to  adjust  itself  to  the  world  about 
it — constitute  another  element.  Of  these  two,  it  is 
evident  that  the  reactions  of  the  self  in  consequence 
of  the  stimuli  from  without,  is  the  more  important 
element  both  in  the  formation  of  ideas  and  of  char- 
acter. It  is  not  what  a  man  sees,  hears  or  feels 
that  makes  him  what  he  is ;  but  the  reactions  which 
the  phenomena  excite  in  him.  Music,  in  the  most 
perfect  expression  of  it  known  to  man,  may  fall 
upon  different  ears,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  pro- 
duce on  different  persons  the  same  sensuous  im- 
pressions ;  yet  the  reactions,  due  to  inherited  pecu- 
liarities or  to  culture  of  taste,  may  so  differ  as  to 
be  delight  in  the  soul  of  one  man  and  disgust  in 
that  of  another.  Scenes  and  spoken  words  may 
make  the  same  sense  impressions  on  the  human 
organism.  But  the  different  reactions  will  enable 
a  Galileo  to  see  the  pendulum  in  the  swinging  lamp 
at  Pisa ;  Newton  to  see  the  law  of  gravity  in  a  fall- 
ing apple;  and  Morse  to  see  a  suggestion  of  the 
telegraph  in  the  words,  "Their  line  is  gone  out 
through  all  the  earth." 

Furthermore,  we  are  so  constituted  that  reac- 
tions tend  to  repeat  themselves,  so  that  a  response 


122  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

to  an  exciting  stimulus  from  without  somehow  adds 
such  an  element  to  our  ideas  of  that  object,  and  so 
distinguishes  it  from  other  things  about  it,  that  we 
react  with  less  effort  a  second  time  to  such  stimula- 
tion, till  finally  reaction  is  without  effort — at  least 
conscious  effort.  Not  only  so,  but  objects  be- 
come distinguished,  classified  and  named  in  con- 
sequence of  the  reactions  of  the  self  upon  the  outer 
world,  till  they  are  grouped  by  the  law  of  associ- 
ation ;  and  the  presence  of  one  obj  ect  of  the  group 
causes  the  whole  class  to  spring  up  before  the 
mind,  indicating  the  sensitiveness  of  the  mind  to 
even  a  suggestion  of  the  thing,  which  it  has  been 
accustomed  to  respond  to  as  an  excitative.  Obvi- 
ously the  greater  the  knowledge  of  the  environment 
and  the  more  advanced  the  sensory  powers,  the 
more  extensive  will  be  the  series  which,  as  groups, 
will  be  aroused  when  one  of  the  series  is  presented 
to  the  senses,  and  the  greater  the  probability  that 
one  object  so  presented  will  arouse  the  whole 
series. 

Our  reactions,  it  will  be  seen,  thus  develop  our 
powers  to  react.  On  the  principle  that  the  unused 
becomes  the  atrophied,  conscious  or  unconscious 
lack  of  response  to  stimulation  eventuates  in  prac- 
tical inability  to  respond.  A  man's  activities  are  de- 
termined by  those  ideas  for  which  reactions  have 
been  provided.  Where  the  powers  to  react  are  well 
developed  and  no  stimulus  is  given,  we  have  the 
"felt  need"  that  becomes  so  interesting  an  element 
in  providing  for  the  wants  of  people — in  religious 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  123 

and  social  life.  He  who  removes  from  men  that 
which  thej  have  been  accustomed  to  rely  upon  to 
stimulate  their  activities — those  powers  having 
been  highly  developed — and  provides  no  substitute, 
may  expect  disastrous  results ;  at  least  some  out- 
break of  activity  which  will  be  abnormal.  It  is 
said  that  John  Wesley  owed  much  of-  his  success 
in  his  Church  work  to  his  discerning  this  principle 
in  dealing  with  the  common  folk  of  England,  whose 
bent  towards  certain  activities  which  the  Church 
had  been  forced  to  forbid,  Itft  the  people  without 
stimulation,  yet  with  fully  developed  motor  activi- 
ties that  long  years  of  indulgence  had  made  second- 
nature.  He  met  that  demand  in  his  social  meet- 
ings, and  many  convivial  Church  gatherings,  which 
gave  an  outlet  to  expression,  in  word  and  deed,  and 
thus  saved  men  and  women  to  the  Church  who 
might  have  sought  sordid  things  in  their  almost 
irresistible  desire  to  relieve  pent-up  powers. 

We  see  here  more  than  a  hint  as  to  the  source  of 
community  and  national  ideas.  We  obviously  in- 
herit from  our  ancestors  our  powers  to  react  against 
certain  stimuli.  Otherwise  Ave  could  not  rationally 
explain  the  exquisite  taste  and  skill  of  the  Greek 
in  dealing  with  marble ;  the  Italian  in  dealing  with 
pigments ;  the  German  in  music ;  and  the  Hebrew 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  things  of  God. 

The  objects  which  stimulate  our  senses  remain 
the  same;  but  the  power  to  react  and  the  disposi- 
tion to  react,  vary  in  individuals  and  races  due  to 
heredity  and  activity.     Motor  activities  developed 


IM  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

through  years  are  transmitted  potentially  to 
children — and  what  we  call  "tendencies"  are  so 
marked  that  they  soon  become,  under  stimulation, 
established  forces.  These  motor  powers  which 
constitute  such  an  important  element  in  what  we 
call  character,  and  distinguish  what  we  ordinarily 
denominate  race  characteristics,  must  date  from 
the  remote  past.  The  English  doubtless  owe  more 
of  their  national  characteristics  to  the  lands  from 
which  their  ancestors  came,  than  to  their  now 
native  land.  The  characteristics  of  men  whose  an- 
cestors came  to  America  from  Germany,  France 
and  Scotland,  have  probably  been  less  affected 
by  the  change  of  country  and  by  years  of  absence 
than  by  intermarriage  with  other  nationalities. 
Abraham  lived  a  secluded,  almost  isolated  life,  dur- 
ing the  time  he  was  being  impressed  by  such  ex- 
ceptional revelations  from  God.  As  a  consequence 
he  stamped  his  whole  posterity  with  certain  race 
characteristics  which  that  race  bears  to  this  day. 
Years  of  residence  in  foreign  countries,  and  life 
under  the  most  varied  conditions,  have  not  yet 
obliterated  these  characteristics,  nor  have  they 
greatly  modified  the  race  ideas.  If  accurate  Chi- 
nese history  could  be  secured,  no  doubt  the  pecu- 
liar race  characteristics  and  ideas  of  that  people 
would  be  to  a  considerable  extent  explained — at 
least  so  far  as  the  theory  here  advocated  can  ex- 
plain them. 

With  this  bare  outline  suggestive  of  the  origin 
of  ideas,  the  matter  of  the  persistence  of  the  same. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  125 

the  feature  of  the  subject  with  which  I  would  espe- 
cially deal,  forces  itself  upon  our  attention. 
This  subject  was  first  brought  to  my  attention 
by  noting  how,  in  keeping  a  journal  of  sugges- 
tions and  plans  for  future  work,  and  for  recrea- 
tions of  a  literary  sort, — the  purposes  and  ideas 
of  the  past  would  persist  after  having  been  prac- 
tically abandoned  and  even  forgotten.  Their  pres- 
ence in  some  instances  I  took  for  their  first  ap- 
pearance to  the  mind ;  but  found  on  investigation, 
these  were  in  many  instances  but  suggestions  or 
plans  long  since  considered,  but  again  forcing 
themselves  on  my  attention  somewhat  more  fully 
developed.  The  natural  question  arose:  Whence 
these  ideas,  and  why  do  they  persist? 

Goethe  had  implanted  in  his  mind  the  "Faust" 
idea  early  in  life,  and  it  teased  him  till  he  died 
in  old  age.  Warren  Hastings  early  conceived  the 
idea  of  regaining  his  ancestral  home,  Daylesford, 
and  the  purpose  to  obtain  it  never  forsook  him 
during  all  his  career  in  India.  Dante  and  Milton 
early  in  life  decided  each  to  write  a  great  poem, 
and  they  did  not  so  much  possess  the  idea  as  the 
idea  possessed  them,  till  they  had  accomplished 
their  tasks. 

The  history  of  inventions  and  discoveries  is 
usually  connected  with  some  such  persistence  of 
ideas.  A  Newton  Avorks  on  his  theory  of  gravita- 
tion, lays  it  aside,  practically  abandons  it,  finally 
takes  it  again  in  hand  and  demonstrates  that  the 
inspiration  he  first  received  was  not  a  mere  vagary. 


126  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Philosophers  have  been  pursued  by  certain  sug- 
gestions, and  have  interpreted  as  best  they  could 
their  visions  to  the  world,  till  finally  the  idea, 
struggling  through  ages  to  express  itself,  came 
forth  in  its  symmetry  and  self-convincing  power, 
to  become  a  precious  heritage  for  coming  genera- 
tions, and  to  take  its  place  among  the  things  we 
call  certain  and  valuable. 

It  may  be  asserted  that  nothing  which  is  true  is 
altogether  new.  Few  exercises  yield  richer  returns 
than  that  of  tracing  ideas  to  their  supposed 
sources — to  mere  suggestions  or  guesses  in  the  re- 
mote past,  which  suggestions,  if  we  could  press  our 
investigations  further,  would  be  found,  in  turn,  to 
have  owed  their  utterance  to  hints  still  more 
remote.  But  no  less  interesting  than  the  genesis 
of  an  idea  is  its  persistence — the  manner  in  which 
it  passes  from  mind  to  mind,  and  from  generation 
to  generation.  In  this  persistence  ideas  proceed 
from  the  obscure  to  the  well-defined;  from  hints 
and  suggestions  to  established  convictions. 

The  entire  field  of  literature  is  ready  to  contrib- 
ute illustrations  of  this  principle.  The  records  of 
the  different  sciences  are,  in  this  particular, 
equally  fruitful  and  must  be,  one  and  all  intro- 
duced, in  our  day,  by  "historical  sketches,"  telling 
how  present  day  opinions  bear  upon  opinions  held, 
and  it  may  be  formulated,  years  ago.  I  shall  con- 
fine myself  more  particularly  to  philosophic 
thought,  however,  and  even  here  but  a  few  of  the 
many  illustrations  are  cited — examples  indicating 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  127 

how  the  more  remote  past  is  connected  with  the 
ideas  of  our  day. 

The  Pythagoreans  forestalled  the  ripest  conclu- 
sions of  modem  science  when  they  made  number 
play  a  final  and  decisive  part  in  all  things.  Pytha- 
goras is  credited  with  having  given  utterance  to  the 
saying,  "The  wisest  of  all  things  is  number^  and 
next  to  this  is  the  name-giver."  At  the  boundary 
line  of  the  chemist's  numerical  descriptions  he 
begins  the  use  of  words  to  describe  his  problems. 
What  shall  we  say  of  the  genius  which  could,  ages 
ago  see  in  the  harmonies  of  music  that  which  forms 
a  basis  for  nearly  all  of  our  science  of  to-day,  viz., 
the  principle  that  elements  mingle  in  certain  pro- 
portions ;  calculations  on  squares  of  distances  or 
the  like,  yielding  such  results  as  Newton  obtained ; 
vibrations  at  definite  and  different  rates,  giving  us 
in  turn  music,  light,  electricity.  X-rays,  and  we 
know  not  what  more.''  And  what  of  the  insight 
which  saw  the  potency  and  magic  of  a  "name," 
that  which  should  register  for  the  time  what  could 
not  be  calculated  or  might  never  be,  yet  would 
enable  men  thereafter  to  stand  on  solid  footing 
while  they  made  further  investigations  ?  We  build 
up  towering  structures  on  "atoms" — things  which 
exist,  so  far  as  actual  experience  goes,  but  in  name. 

It  is  asserted  that  but  for  the  influence  of 
Aristotle,  which  for  fifteen  centuries  held  the  world 
from  the  truth,  what  is  now  known  as  the  Coper- 
nican  theory  of  our  planetery  system  would  have 
perhaps  been  given  to  mankind  in  the  days  before 


128  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Christ;  for  Pythagoras  had  discerned  here  the 
truth  as  it  was  afterwards  seen. 

The  Eleatic  philosophers  anticipated  our  latest 
problems  if  not  conclusions  in  philosophy.  They 
saw  the  opposition  between  perception  and  thought, 
and  contended  that  the  former  must  be  corrected 
by  the  latter;  that  what  was  perceived  was  merely 
phenomena,  and  was  vacillating  and  deceptive, 
while  the  thing  discerned  by  reason  was  the  un- 
changeable. "Being  and  Thought  are  one  and 
the  same,"  said  Parmenides  in  500  B.  C. 
"Thought  and  thing  are  one  and  the  same,"  said 
Hegel  in  1800  A.  D. 

When  we  contemplate  Heraclitus  in  the  light  of 
an  appreciative  and  complete  characterization  of 
him,  we  are  inclined  to  think  the  statement  of  a 
modern  writer  in  philosophy  concerning  him  not 
an  exaggeration :  "The  influence  of  this  powerful 
thinker,"  says  Ludwig  Noire,  "was  the  more  con- 
siderable because  all  subsequent  systems  had  either 
to  attach  themselves  to  his  doctrine  or  to  deal  with 
it  in  the  way  of  development  or  correction."  Hera- 
clitus, in  opposition  to  the  Eleatics,  saw  incessant 
"flux"  in  all  we  perceive.  In  connection  with  this 
constant  onflowing  he  developed  the  idea  of  an  un- 
folding which  has  in  it  the  germ  of  modern  evolu- 
tion. His  theory  that  all  things  proceed  from  fire 
and  return  finally  to  fire,  sounds  very  modern  in- 
deed, when  science  tells  us  that  the  final  form 
which  energy  takes  is  heat,  and  that  we  can  follow 
it  no  further.    What  Heraclitus  really  means  by 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  129 

"fire"  was  what  we  would  denominate  "warmth," 
or  warm  air.  If  he  had  suggested  the  term  "fire- 
mist"  to  begin  with,  in  addition  to  what  he  said  of 
heat  as  the  final  form  of  energy,  he  might  have 
written  an  up-to-date  book  on  the  origin  of  the 
universe  from  the  view-point  of  some  of  our  most 
advanced  scholars  of  the  extreme  evolutional  type. 
This  from  a  man  in  «$f4tfr  ^03 ! 

He  furthermore  said  that  the  soul  attains  to  ra- 
tional thought  by  receiving  into  itself  the  divine 
Logos,  which  presides  over  the  outer  world.  Here 
is  our  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Immanence,  or  Uni- 
versal Reason, — vaguely  conceived,  but  enunciated 
nevertheless.  When  Heraclitus  says  that  in  sleep 
the  soul  loses  connection  with  the  outer  world  and 
is  united  again  on  waking,  because  brought  into 
connection  with  the  world  by  means  of  the  senses — 
we  have  the  germ  of  the  "two-soul"  theory,  an- 
nounced by  a  recent  writer  on  psychic  phenomena. 

Empedocles  anticipated  the  theology  of  the 
afterdays  in  his  suggestion  that  the  inner  side  of 
things  in  this  world  is  controlled  by  Love  and 
Hate.  In  our  last  analysis  we  say,  "God  is  Love" ; 
on  the  other  hand  we  cannot  describe  the  spirit  of 
evil  in  one  word  that  indicates  better  what  we  mean 
than  by  saying  "The  devil  is  personified  Hate." 
We  may  differ  as  to  the  nature  of  the  contention 
of  the  two  principles,  and  yet  we  assume  that  there 
is  such  contention,  and  that  the  same  comes  of  de- 
sire to  gain  supremacy  in  the  realm  of  spirit. 

How    far    is     Empedocles     from     Darwinism 


130  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

when  he  says,  "that  cases  of  adaptation  abound 
because  in  the  nature  of  things  it  happens  that 
what  serves  its  purpose  is  preserved,  and  what 
fails  to  do  so  perishes  at  once?"  If  this  is 
not  the  doctrine  of  the  "survival  of  the  fittest"  in 
unmistakable  terms,  what  is  it?  It  is  well  known 
that  Democritus  launched  the  theory  of  Atoms, 
and  while  his  theory  was  in  some  respects  crude, 
nevertheless  it  was  the  same  in  substance  that  is 
now  held  as  the  basis  of  our  physical  sciences. 
When  Bacon  began  his  tireless  experiments  at  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  age  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion, he  could  not  do  better  than  to  call  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world  to  the  long-neglected  name  and 
work  of  Democritus. 

When  we  come  to  Plato  we  turn  our  attention 
from  naturalism  to  mind,  and  deal  with  pure 
thought.  We  cannot  forget,  though,  that  in  deal- 
ing with  Plato  we  study  a  double  personality,  for 
Socrates  and  Plato  are  inseparably  united:  the 
pupil  is  the  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  his  great 
teacher.  The  world  knows  what  Socrates  was  and 
what  he  taught  mainly  through  the  Platonic  Dia- 
logues. 

Plato  was  the  creator  of  a  theor}'  of  knowledge ; 
the  founder  of  Idealism ;  the  inspirer  of  the  sciences 
of  psychology,  moral  philosophy  and  logic;  the 
clear  enunciator  of  the  soul's  immortality ;  the  sug- 
gestor  of  the  many  ideal  republics  and  states  from 
the  times  of  Aristotle  to  Edward  Bellamy.  His 
philosophy  combined  so  naturally  and  easily  with 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  131 

what  is  known  as  New  Testament  revelation  as  to 
occasion  little  discord  in  the  early  Church.  Of  the 
many  secrets  this  wonderful  man  discovered, 
not  the  least  to  be  mentioned  his  philosophy  of 
right  living.  He  was  both  in  his  teaching  and  in 
his  private  life  for  a  long  time  a  standing  puzzle 
to  Christians  who  held  the  theory,  now  happily 
discarded,  that  nothing  good  could  come  out  of 
Paganism. 

When  we  reach  the  name  and  works  of  that 
other  marvel  of  the  ancients,  Aristotle,  we  seem  to 
have  discovered  thought's  complement,  if  we  take 
him  in  connection  with  Plato.  These  two  men  have 
been  called  the  electric  poles  which  gave  direction 
to  the  current  of  thought  for  two  thousand  years. 
While  these  men,  as  we  shall  see  later,  represent 
types  of  thinkers,  we  find  in  Aristotle  one  of  the 
finest  instances  of  what  was  more  common  in  after 
days,  viz.,  a  sifter  and  elaborator  of  opinions  ex- 
pressed by  predecessors.  Not  that  Aristotle  was 
wanting  in  originality;  but  his  love  for  the  truth 
did  not  allow  him  to  ignore  what  others  before  him 
had  discovered  and  perhaps  but  partially  formu- 
lated. He  has  thus  done  justice  to  his  predecessors 
while  he  has  made  all  men  of  thought  after  him  his 
debtors,  by  the  comprehensive  sweep  of  his  genius. 
He  has  contributed  more  than  any  one  man  to  sci- 
entific education  of  the  world.  He  wrote  on  practi- 
cally everything,  and  the  singular  fact  to  observe- 
is  that  he  may  still  be  said  to  deserve  the  descrip- 
tion Dante  has  given  him,  "the  master  of  those- 


132  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

that  know."  His  logic  remains  as  he  gave  it  to 
the  world.  His  "politics"  may  still  be  studied  with 
profit  by  men  who  would  discern  the  philosophy  of 
government.  His  "Rhetoric"  is  a  marvel  of  in- 
sight and  practical  knowledge.  In  "Ethics"  he 
satisfied  the  most  pious  of  men  in  the  days  of  the 
Schoolmen.  While  in  "Physics"  he  often  says 
absurd  things,  his  anticipations  of  things  after- 
wards found  to  be  true  must  not  be  forgotten. 
Assuming  the  earth  to  be  round,  it  was  not  a  bad 
guess,  considering  all  things,  when  Aristotle  said 
it  was  38,000  miles  in  circumference.  He  said 
further  that,  "we  must  not  treat  with  incredulity 
the  opinion  of  those  who  say  that  the  regions  near 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules  join  onto  India,  and  that 
the  ocean  to  the  east  of  India  and  that  to  the  west 
of  Europe  are  one  and  tlie  same."  Here  Columbus 
got  his  clue. 

Aristotle  wrote  the  first  "History  of  Philoso- 
phy," and  in  his  "Metaphysics"  gives  us  the  terms 
"form"  and  "matter"  which  play  so  important  a 
part  in  the  philosophy  of  the  afterdays,  especially 
in  the  works  of  Kant  and  those  inspired  by  him. 

Aristotle  was  the  great  word-coiner  of  the 
ancient  philosophers.  In  this  particular,  as  in 
others,  what  he  did  was  to  originate,  to  be  later 
developed  more  fully,  such  words  as  "maxim," 
"matter,"  "form,"  "category,"  "motive,"  "en- 
ergy," "mean,"  "extreme,"  "faculty,"  and  a  host 
of  other  terms  which  we  should  not  know  how  to  do 
without. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  133 

Perhaps  the  best  evidence  of  the  power  of  Aris- 
totle to  dominate  the  mind  of  mankind  is  seen  in 
the  fact  that  when  in  the  12th  century  of  our  era, 
his  works,  after  having  been  practically  lost  to  the 
world,  were  again  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
thinkers  of  Europe  through  the  Arabs,  his 
influence  became  a  kind  of  dynasty  of  Aristotleian 
ideas,  continuing  till  about  the  middle  of  the 
16th  century.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  great  theolo- 
gian, regarded  Aristotle  as  his  master  no  less  than 
did  Dante  the  poet.  The  theologians  of  that  time 
regarded  him  as  one  of  their  own,  and  Aquinas 
classes  Aristotle's  logic,  physics  and  ethics,  in  his 
great  "summary,"  with  Christian  divinity ;  Dante 
utilizes  Aristotle's  theory  of  the  universes  in  some 
of  the  most  critical  passages  of  the  "Divine  Com- 
edy." Beatrice  standing  on  the  ninth  heaven  dis- 
courses in  Aristotleian  terms  concerning  the  "un- 
moved Mover  of  all  things."  In  fact,  till  the  time 
when  Idealism  dominated  Modern  Philosophy, 
Aristotle  was  regarded  as  one  inspired  in  much 
the  same  sense  we  now  think  of  the  ancient  proph- 
ets— one  of  those  few  very  choice  spirits  to  whom 
God  communicates  what  He  does  at  rare  intervals 
to  rarest  men. 

I  shall  dwell  no  longer  on  the  particular  point 
that  I  have  used  ancient  philosophers  to  illustrate, 
viz.,  that  thought  proceeds  from  obscure  hints  or 
happy  conjectures  to  established  convictions. 
After  the  death  of  Aristotle  ancient  philosophy  de- 


184!  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

teriorated.  Nothing  else  prophetic  or  anticipatory, 
worthy  of  special  note,  was  uttered  till  in  a  much 
later  age.  But  it  would  take  a  vast  volume  to  do 
anything  like  justice  to  the  debt  the  world  owes  to 
those  intellects  from  Thales  to  Aristotle.  Theirs 
was  the  period  in  the  world's  history  which  might 
well  be  compared  to  the  season  of  the  year  when 
the  pollen  flies,  carried  by  the  winds,  to  fertilize 
the  plant-world. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  their  persistence,  ideas 
seem  to  proceed  through  Typical  Thinkers.  If  the 
figure  of  the  piston  rod  of  the  engine  be  used  as  an 
illustration,  then  we  might  say  that  thought 
moves  because  of  the  propulsion  given  at  the  two 
extremes.  But  rather  let  these  typical  men  be 
thought  of  as  the  complemental  rails  of  the  same 
railway  track — opposite  but  not  necessarily  an- 
tagonistic ;  essential  to  each  other.  If  what  is  here 
said  seems  to  imply  that  the  types  are  but  two, 
this  is  what  is  meant. 

When  Coleridge  says  that  "every  man  is  born 
either  a  Platonist  of  an  Aristotleian,"  he  but  dis- 
cerned and  put  in  convenient  phaseology  what  the 
painter  Raphael  had  long  before  expressed  in  his 
famous  fresco  in  the  Vatican,  when  he  represented 
the  two  philosophers,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  standing 
side  by  side,  the  first  pointing  with  his  finger  to  the 
heavens,  while  the  latter,  listening  coldly,  points 
his  finger  towards  the  earth. 

This  line  of  cleavage  is  not  fanciful,  nor  is  the 
two-fold   division   merely   arbitrary.      When   it   is 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  135 

said  that  the  early  disciples  and  apostles  were  sent 
forth  two  by  two,  and  when  we  find  the  sort  of  men 
that  were  coupled  together,  we  see  a  recognition, 
by  the  Divine  Author  of  Christianity,  of  the  fact 
which  we  find  bound  up  in  our  very  nature.  Peter 
and  John ;  Paul  and  Barnabas  ; — a  mystic  in  each 
instance  joined  with  a  practical  man  of  affairs. 
A  Luther  has  his  Melancthon,  and  a  Wesley  his 
Whitefield.  It  is  not  at  all  remarkable  to  discover 
that  such  men,  while  complementing  each  other, 
had  their  sharp  disagreements.  Differences  were 
almost  inevitable.  Plato  and  Aristotle  had  theirs, 
and  their  contentions  have  been  exaggerated  into 
malicious  opposition.  But  as  the  gospel  was  spread 
through  typical  men  working  in  couples  side  by 
side,  so  Thought  has  ever  progressed,  and  will  pro- 
gress. 

Plato  stands  for  that  type  of  mind  which  sympa- 
thizes readily  with  Parmenides,  Heraclitus,  Pyth- 
agoras. He  has  his  disciples  in  Hegel,  Emerson 
and  Browning.  He  finds  his  counterpart  in  the 
poets,  the  prophets,  and  men  who  trust  their  intui- 
tions. Aristotle  sympathizes  naturally  with  Demo- 
critus,  and  becomes  the  fountain-head  of  such 
thinkers  as  Leibniz,  Bacon,  Locke,  Darwin.  The 
men  of  Platonic  type  are  impatient  of  the  investi- 
gation of  individual  things,  and  stress  a  priori 
thought.  They  are  the  great  theorizers  of  the 
world.  They  are  caught  by  the  "Zeit-geist"  which 
they  believe  to  be  Universal  Reason  in  its  manifes- 
tation to  a  certain  age,  and  they  dare  to  predict 


136  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

or  anticipate  what  does  not  as  yet  appear.  They 
speak  in  parables,  often,  and  have  enriched  the 
world  by  suggestions  which  the  ages  afterward 
acted  upon  and  made  thereby  wonderful  discov- 
eries. They  have  been  the  first  to  see  the  sun  on 
the  mountain-tops  and  have  declared  to  mankind 
the  approach  of  a  new  day.  These  men  have  been 
Idealists,  Spiritualists,  Mentalists  or  Personalists, 
as  we  may  choose  to  call  them. 

The  Aristotlelian  type  of  men  have  patiently 
investigated;  have  reasoned  from  individuals  to 
generals ;  have  stressed  reason  and  logic ;  have 
despised  prophesying ;  have  disliked  mysticism ;  in 
their  extreme  form  have  become  Positivists,  but 
nearly  always  have  been  on  the  border-land  of  some 
form  of  Materialism.  They  emphasize  the  senses ; 
are  anxious  to  be  known  as  practical ;  in  their  zeal 
they  have  often  done  violence  to  instinct  and  intui- 
tion, just  as  men  of  the  other  type  have  often  done 
violence  to  reason  and  despised  patient  investiga- 
tion of  nature. 

Whole  epochs  have  been  dominated  by  one  or 
the  other  of  these  types;  and  when  this  is  so,  we 
have  on  the  one  hand  a  poetical  and  prophetic  age ; 
and  on  the  other,  a  matter-of-fact,  scientific  age, 
with  materialism  at  our  very  doors.  If  we  might 
press  this  matter  further  and  note  its  bearing  on 
national  temperament,  the  statement  could  be  made 
as  a  general  one,  that  the  English  mind  is  Aristo- 
tleian,  while  the  German  mind  is  Platonic.  This 
may  not  seem  just  in  the  light  of  the  patience  of 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  137 

the  German  student:  but  the  Platonic  tendencies 
to  some  form  of  Ideahsm,  and  to  a  love  for  theoriz- 
ing, are  undoubtedly  characteristic  of  the  German. 
Materialism  has  ever  flourished  in  England,  while 
idealism,  mysticism,  and  the  like  readily  grow  on 
German  soil. 

Men  in  every  age  have  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously leaned  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  types 
of  thinkers.  Whether  declared  monists  or  dualists, 
they  find  they  cannot  serve  two  masters :  for  if 
dualists,  they  either  subordinate  matter  to  spirit 
and  become  spiritualists ;  or  subordinate  spirit  to 
matter  and  become  materiahsts.  If  monists,  one 
eubstance  must  absorb  the  other — matter  absorb 
spirit  or  spirit  matter — and  again  the  necessity 
appears  to  "take  sides."  If  a  "Double-faced  Some- 
what" is  back  of  everything,  then  again  the  ques- 
tion asserts  itself  whether  the  "Somewhat"  is  es- 
sentially Spirit  or  Matter. 

If,  however,  ideas  in  their  persistence,  must  needs 
persist  through  their  mediumship  of  mind,  the 
world  has  need  of  the  two  types  of  men  referred  to. 
If  these  men  of  complemental  natures  know  them- 
selves and  each  other,  there  follows  thankful  rec- 
ognition of  what  each  can  do  for  the  other. 

This  matter  becomes  very  practical  when  we  see 
a  Walter  Scott,  as  Lockhart  describes  him,  with 
head  erect,  a  smile  of  triumph  on  his  face,  because 
conscious  of  power  and  vocation,  driving  his  pen 
over  paper  at  an  almost  incredible  speed,  when 
writing  his  matchless  works  of  fiction ;  but  when 


138  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

writing  his  "Life  of  Napoleon,"  his  head  was  bowed 
over  his  books,  a  pained  expression  was  on  his  face, 
his  manner  hesitating  and  doubtful — because  he 
was  out  of  his  element.  The  world  to-day  cares 
little  for  Scott's  "Napoleon,"  but  it  will  continue 
to  the  end  of  time  to  rejoice  in  his  novels.  What 
was  true  of  Scott  is  true  of  men  in  all  the  vocations 
of  life — they  should  seek  to  recognize  their  own 
powers  and  those  of  others,  and  respect  the  gifts 
of  God.  By  failing  to  recognize  worth  in  men 
from  whom  they  differed,  such  men  as  Lucretius, 
Spinoza  and  Francis  Bacon  produced  works  that 
wholly  reject  the  theory  of  design,  simply  because 
these  authors  were  prejudiced  against  theology 
and  supposed  "teleology"  was  inseparably  con- 
nected with  theology.  Had  they  been  broad-minded 
enough  to  see  what  even  theologians  have  done  for 
the  world,  they  might  have  saved  themselves  from 
much  error  and  added  an  important  element  to 
their  systems  of  thought. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  ideas  persist  in  the  face  of 
apparently  annihilating  arguments  and  in  spite  of 
constituted  authority. 

This  has  been  seen  particularly  in  the  realms  of 
religion  and  philosophy.  We  see  something  in  man 
rising  up  and  protesting  against  what  appears  to 
be  invincible  logic.  There  is  no  apparent  flaw  in 
the  argument,  but  instinct  or  intuition  says,  "It 
cannot  be  true."  This  sort  of  persistence  calls  for 
explanation,  and  is  not  an  unimportant  phase  of 
the  general  trend  of  thought. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  139 

Take,  in  philosophy,  the  system  of  Kant.  No 
one  will  contend  Kant  is  perfectly  consistent;  but 
it  may  be  asserted  that  the  grasp  of  the  man  is  so 
powerful,  and  his  comprehension  of  mental  phe- 
nomena so  complete,  that  most  writers  who  under- 
take to  refute  him  seem  like  pygmies.  Yet,  with- 
out having  read  what  the  strongest  opponents  of 
Kantianism  have  said,  the  intelligent  and  inde- 
pendent reader  of  Kant  will  usually  after  some 
days  of  reflection  come  to  some  such  conclusion  as 
this:  "I  cannot  make  a  reply  to  this  which  would 
be  satisfactory  either  to  myself  or  to  others,  still 
I  am  not  convinced  of  Kant's  correctness — nay,  I 
even  believe  he  is  in  error,  in  spite  of  much  that  is 
true  in  his  system."  And  this  very  disposition  to 
regulate,  correct,  modify, — by  some  standard  the 
nature  of  which  we  do  not  fully  understand, — is 
one  of  the  curious  things  to  be  met  with  in  the  per- 
sistence of  ideas  as  related  to  the  general  trend  of 
thought. 

Take  the  arguments  for  materialism,  or  agnos- 
ticism— they  have  been  strong,  and  some  might 
say,  unanswerable ;  still,  not  wholly  because  of  our 
religious  training,  I  aver,  but  because  of  something 
within  us  which  we  have  not  fully  comprehended, 
thinking  men  have  been  impelled  persistently  to 
reject  the  conclusions  of  the  materialist  and  ag- 
nostic. Their  systems  abide  for  the  time,  and  yet 
not  because  always  replied  to  satisfactorily,  but 
because  at  war  with  the  higher  instincts  of  men, 
the  systems  are  rejected    even    before    some    one 


140  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

appears  who  satisfactorily  refutes  the  same.  Hume 
had  been  rejected  long  before  Kant  showed  how 
very  far  the  astute  Scotchman  was  from  the  truth. 
Granted  the  fact  that  those  who  attempted  a  reply 
to  Hume  did  not  use  temperate  language  and  did 
not  meet  the  issues  fairly :  still  they  felt  he  was 
wrong,  and  felt  that  they  were  right,  even  though 
their  arguments  were  in  some  cases  flimsy. 

It  might  be  added  here  that  whole  systems  of 
theology  have  been  logically  consistent,  and  indeed 
practically  unanswerable,  from  the  standpoint  of 
mere  logic,  and  those  who  have  attempted  to  refute 
them  have  been  involved  in  contradictions,  if  not 
worse — but  the  human  heart  has  ever  been,  in  the 
long  run,  wiser  than  the  human  head.  Where  God 
has  been  misrepresented  or  caricatured  by  a  system 
of  doctrine,  the  heart  of  humanity  has  eventually 
rejected  the  harsher  phases  of  doctrine — and  the 
result  has  justified  the  position  for  which  the  in- 
stincts of  man  contended.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  voice  of  the  populace  of  a  given  age  is 
more  reliable  than  the  voice  of  trained  and  special 
workers:  but  where  the  instincts  of  man  have  per- 
sistently from  age  to  age  resisted  what  scholars 
have  urged  the  world  to  accept,  the  result  has 
almost  always  justified  the  position  taken  by  human 
intuition. 

There  has  been  as  much  resistance  to  the  doc- 
trine of  conscious  eternal  punishment  as  to  any 
doctrine  we  have  heard  proclaimed  from  the  pul- 
pit.    This  opposition  is  not  peculiar  to  to-day ;  it 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  141 

has  been  either  expressed  or  has  struggled  for 
expression  through  all  the  ages  of  the  Church's 
existence.  And  we  cannot  ignore  the  instincts  of 
intelligent  and  spiritual  men  and  women,  who  have 
lifted  up  heart  if  not  head  in  protest  against  the 
bald,  literal,  seemingly  unsympathetic  way  in 
which  the  whole  subject  is  often  presented.  Their 
natures  cry  out  against  the  mistake  that  exists 
somewhere,  though  they  may  not  be  able  to  say 
where,  nor  be  able  to  give  a  theory  that  will  satisfy 
what  they  think  revelation  really  promulgates  or 
that  will  satisfy  the  demands  of  transgression 
against  God.  But  it  is  certainly  worth  while  to 
deal  with  that  force,  call  it  Reason,  Spirit,  In- 
stinct,— whatever  we  will,  which  enables  us  to 
postulate  or  affirm  what  we  cannot  formulate. 
This  disposition  to  affirm  what  pure  reason  would 
exclude,  was  illustrated  in  Kant,  who,  finding  him- 
self forced  into  practical  agnosticism  by  his  own 
arguments,  acknowledged  the  truth  of  the  things 
his  system  held  could  not  be  proved,  and  came  to 
affirm  that  a  higher  reason,  the  "practical,"  en- 
abled him  to  rise  above  the  theoretical.  Kant  said 
that  in  the  higher  realms  he  found  the  "categorical 
imperative." 

The  persistence  of  ideas  is  but  the  more  empha- 
sized by  the  fact  that  in  that  persistence  we  note, 
often,  deviations  and  irregularities  xvhich  call  for 
some  explanation.  The  trend  of  thought  is  some- 
thing like  the  course  of  a  river,  whose  main  direc- 
tion is  unmistakable,  but  whose  windings,  due  to 


142  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

obstructions,  present  to  the  eye  considerable  irreg- 
ularity. The  persistence  of  the  stream  in  a  given 
direction  despite  the  irregularities  in  its  flow  is 
strongly  indicative  of  a  cause  why  the  river 
should  flow  in  one  direction  rather  than  in  another. 
So,  in  case  of  the  direction  thought  takes,  and  in 
the  persistence  of  it  despite  obstructions  and 
irregularities,  we  have  more  than  a  hint  as  to  the 
reason  for  its  particular  trend. 

This  irregularity  in  the  progress  of  an  idea 
has  been  called  "pendulation,"  because  of  the  ten- 
dency to  oscillate  within  certain  limits.  We  note  a 
tendency  in  men  to  abandon  a  course  of  thinking 
which  has  for  ages  held  the  world,  and  take  a 
position,  seemingly  antagonistic,  only,  however, 
after  the  lapse  of  years  to  again  assume  the  posi- 
tion that  had  years  before  been  abandoned.  This 
sort  of  "  history  repeating  itself,"  in  thought  as 
well  as  act,  so  that  what  once  was  again  appears, 
gives  a  deeper  meaning  to  the  biblical  moralist's 
words:  "There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun." 

The  course  of  thought  has  been  so  regular  in  its 
very  irregularity  that  its  direction  in  a  future  age 
has  been  pretty  well  anticipated  by  those  who  were 
familiar  with  the  drift,  and  who  knew  the  forces 
that  were  at  work  when  making  their  predictions. 
No  doubt  the  observation  of  this  interesting  fact 
led  to  the  writing  of  books  on  the  "Philosophy  of 
History,"  and  in  the  case  of  a  man  like  Hegel, 
who  was  apt  to  be  borne  to  extremes  by  a  theory, 
this  sort  of  writing  was  carried  to  the  border  of 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  143 

the  fanciful.  Yet,  though  men  have  gone  to  ex- 
tremes in  emphasizing  the  limitations  and  what 
they  called  the  necessary  direction  of  thought,  still 
much  truth  is  here — too  much  to  ignore  it  because 
enthusiasts  have  gone  to  extremes  in  dealing  with 
it. 

Let  a  few  instances  suffice  to  illustrate  what  I 
mean  by  this  pendulation  in  thought.  The  early 
Greek  philosophers,  as  we  have  seen,  were  crudely 
scientific  and  extreme  in  their  naturalism.  This 
course  was  suddenly  abandoned  for  the  study  of 
mind  to  such  an  extent  that  Socrates  cared  no 
more  for  a  scene  in  nature  than  did  Madam  de 
Stael.  We  might  call  Socrates'  philosophy  anthro- 
pological rather  than  strictly  mental,  for  he  was 
interested  in  man,  and  in  mind  as  the  most  import- 
ant thing  in  man:  but  Plato  swung  to  the  other 
extreme  in  concerning  himself  with  INIind, — Ideas 
— almost  to  the  total  disregard  of  individual  man. 

But  a  reaction  came  in  the  days  of  Aristotle. 
Raphael's  fresco  does  not  exaggerate  the  situation : 
the  Stagarite  seemed  impatient  of  sky-study  and 
he  pointed  earthward.  While  not  abandoning  the 
study  of  mind,  he,  with  a  true  empiricist's  instinct, 
took  the  lower  forms  of  life  as  stepping-stones  to 
an  appreciation  of  the  higher.  From  individuals 
to  generals ;  from  the  plant  to  the  man ;  with  his 
foot  on  earth,  his  upward  reach  was  consid- 
erable, but  uncertain.  Plato  began  with  what  was 
in  the  heavenlies,  and  was  uncertain  as  he  de- 
scended. 


144  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

After  these  two  men  had  done  their  work — 
there  came  an  age  of  skepticism.  Leaping  over 
the  centuries  for  the  time,  and  taking  no  account 
of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  the  world 
as  an  entirely  new  element  to  deal  with — we  see  in 
what  may  be  called  modern  philosophy  pendula- 
tion  on  the  same  curves.  We  see  modern  philoso- 
phy just  after  the  Renaissance  first  cosmological, 
then  anthropological,  as  it  traversed  Holland,  Ger- 
many and  France,  then  on  reaching  England  it  de- 
veloped a  theory  of  knowledge,  where  it  finally  be- 
came skeptical.  But  just  as  the  skepticism  of  the 
Sophists  inspired  the  Socratic  reform,  so  the  skep- 
ticism of  Hume  aroused  Kant  from  his  "dogmatic" 
slumber,"  and  German  Idealism  dominated  the 
world. 

To  take  another  view-point :  Just  as  the  study  of 
nature  in  the  early  days  led  to  the  study  of  mind, 
and  the  study  of  mind  led  to  skepticism — so  in  the 
later  days,  when  nature  was  unduly  stressed,  mind 
cried  out  for  a  hearing;  then,  in  great  measure 
due  to  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  together, 
Reason  ascended  the  throne  and  was  almost  deified. 
But  the  heart  at  last  spoke,  in  what  is  known  as 
the  movement  of  Romanticism, — Lessing,  Rous- 
seau, Goethe  and  Schiller  leading.  Kant  was  much 
influenced  by  this  movement  in  the  composition  of 
his  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason."  Thought  pendu- 
lated from  Reason's  domination  to  a  disposition 
to  subordinate  reason  to  something  higher,  just  as 
when  Christianity  entered  the  world  and  men's  in- 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  145 

tuitions  rather  than  their  reason  were  trusted, 
under  the  name  of  faith,  reason  in  the  meanwhile 
was  relegated  to  a  much  more  limited  sphere  than 
men  had  formerly  granted  it. 

The  history  of  the  writings  of  one  man  is,  in 
concrete,  an  illustration  of  this  oscillation  of 
thought.  I  refer  to  the  estimate  the  world  in  vari- 
ous ages  has  placed  upon  the  works  of  Aristotle. 
Soon  after  the  death  of  the  great  philosopher 
there  was  reaction  against  his  ideas,  and  for  some 
centuries  Stoicism  and  Epicureanism  ruled  in  edu- 
cated circles,  giving  place  later  to  Neo-Platonism. 
The  pendulum  swung  to  the  extreme  in  the  tenth 
century,  when  Aristotle  became  practically  un- 
known to  the  Christian  world,  though  greatly  re- 
vered about  this  time  by  the  Arabs.  Through 
translations  from  Arabian  literature  European 
scholars  became  in  the  eleventh  century  acquainted 
with  Aristotle,  from  which  date  he  again  got  a 
hold  on  the  thinking  world,  such  as  perhaps  he  had 
never  before  had.  For  four  centuries  he  held  un- 
mistakable dominion — being  authority,  almost  on 
a  par  with  inspiration,  for  the  theologians  of  that 
day,  and,  as  expounded  by  Aquinas,  becoming  the 
poet  Dante's  guide  in  cosmology  and  indeed  every- 
thing not  strictly  pertaining  to  dogma. 

Later,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  reaction 
against  Aristotle  set  in,  and  a  fate  similar  to 
Hegel's  in  1835,  was  experienced  by  the  Staga- 
rite.  The  theor}"^  of  the  heavens  propounded  by 
Copernicus,  struck  at  the  heart    of    confidence  in 


146  SEEKERS  APTER  SOUL 

Aristotle.  Men  were  not  considerate  enough  to 
see  that  the  great  philosopher,  living  in  the  remote 
past,  could  not  know  everything,  even  to  the  true 
center  of  the  solar  system;  the  pendulum,  in  con- 
sequence, swung  to  an  opposite  extreme,  and  what 
was  before  came  again,  in  a  measure — for  Aris- 
totle, while  not  lost  sight  of,  was  no  longer  an 
authority. 

With  the  rise  of  the  strictly  scientific  age,  the 
influence  of  which  we  still  feel,  Aristotle  again  be- 
came popular,  his  works  were  again  sought,  and 
the  truths  in  them  emphasized.  Probably  the  pres- 
ent tendency  to  Idealism  in  philosophy  means  once 
more  the  relegation  of  Aristotle  to  a  subordinate 
position.  But  not  however  without  the  world's 
recognizing  its  debt  to  him  for  truths  and  rich 
suggestions. 

We  may  now  appear  to  go  to  the  borderland  of 
the  fanciful  in  suggesting  that  there  is  something 
like  periodicity  in  thoughts'  deviations  or  irregu- 
larities. Ideas  are  not  only  like  the  famous  Lost 
River,  disappearing  only  to  emerge  again,  but 
ideas  are  remarkable  for  the  regularity  of  their  re- 
currence. 

As  has  been  before  suggested,  persons  who 
have  kept  diaries  and  journals  through  years 
have  been  compelled  to  note  how  the  mind, 
without  any  reason  that  can  be  assigned,  comes 
back  at  stated  times  to  think  thoughts  long  be- 
fore dwelt  upon,  and  all  unconscious  that  in  so 
doing  the  mind  is  but  moving  in  something  like  an 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  147 

orbit — passing  the  same  way  it  has  formerly 
passed,  yet,  with  no  necessity  compelling  it,  as  we 
think.  This  periodicity  in  individual  thinking  can 
be  explained  to  a  degree  by  the  presence  of  like 
conditions  or  environment  at  stated  seasons.  But 
this  does  not  appear  to  explain  wholly  the  phenom- 
enon. Those  who  have  studied  the  individual  mind 
closely  have  seen  in  the  peculiarities  of  its  work- 
ings the  world  of  thought  in  miniature.  Great 
religious  revivals  come  periodically.  Commercial 
disasters  and  commercial  prosperity  seem  to  fol- 
low the  same  law.  What  secret  or  hidden  forces 
are  at  work,  the  discovery  of  which  would  make 
all  this  plain .? 

The  periodicity  of  an  idea  in  its  persistence  finds 
illustration  in  the  regularity  with  which  some  per- 
sons have  dreams  of  the  same  character.  In 
one  of  Hawthorne's  "English  Note-Books"  is  to  be 
found  for  example  the  following  entry:  "For  a 
long  while  I  have  occasionally  been  visited  by  a 
singular  dream.  It  is  that  I  am  still  at  college  and 
there  is  a  sense  that  I  have  been  there  unconscion- 
ably long,  and  have  failed  to  make  such  progress 
as  my  contemporaries  have  done.  This  dream, 
recurring  all  through  twenty  or  thirty  years, 
must  be  one  of  the  effects  of  that  heavy  seclusion 
in  which  I  shut  myself  up  for  twelve  years  after 
leaving  college,  when  everybody  moved  onward  and 
left  me  behind." 

This  dream  of  Hawthorne's  has  its  counterpart 
in  many  an  experience,  which  I  mention  as  some- 


148  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

thing  difficult  to  explain  or  to  be  brought  under 
known  laws.  They  recur  at  stated  intervals,  and 
either  follow  or  are  followed  by  the  same  physical 
disability. 

Believers  in  human  progress  would  expect  to  fiiui 
m  the  persistence  of  ideas  that  there  is  a  decided 
tendency  to  purification  of  thought  as  the  ages 
move  on. 

Conceding  lapses  from  high  and  true  thinking, 
and  singular  instances  of  deterioration,  where  one 
age  of  enlightenment  has  been  followed  by  one  of 
stupid  indifference ;  and  granting  that  thought  has 
moved  apparently  in  circles  and  that  at  times  the 
"progress  of  the  race"  has  been  simply  a  mark- 
ing time — still,  despite  this  and  more  which 
might  be  said,  the  movement  of  thought,  as  it  is 
identified  with  truth,  is  much  like  the  double  mo- 
tion of  the  incoming  tide — progress  in  spite  of 
fluctuations  and  recedings. 

George  H.  Lewes  wrote  a  brilliant  and  readable 
*'History  of  Philosophy,"  with  intent  to  prove  that 
men  have  been  moving  in  a  circle  during  the  whole 
of  their  supposed  philosophic  progress:  but  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Lewes'  position  is  not  en- 
dorsed by  any  considerable  number  of  thoughtful 
people,  though  his  book  was  published  over  fifty 
years  ago,  and  that  he  wrote  in  the  interests  of 
and  in  defence  of  Positivism,  we  need  not  be  particu- 
larly concerned  with  his  opinion.  That  there  has 
been  progress  and  that  we  are  nearer  the  goal  now 
than  men  were  who  years  ago  labored  to  formu- 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  149 

late  a  philosophy  of  nature  and  life,  can  scarcely 
be  seriously  doubted  by  fair-minded  people. 

Still  the  question  asserts  itself,  How  do  we  cor- 
rect the  errors  of  men  of  the  past  who,  when  they 
promulgated  their  theories,  were  in  possession  of 
the  same  facts  now  at  our  disposal,  and  who,  in 
many  instances,  were  men  of  such  insight  and  rare 
mental  power  as  to  be  classed  among  the  world's 
great  teachers?  We  can  see  how  the  invention  of 
the  telescope  and  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation would  enable  us  to  correct  past  theories  con- 
cerning heavenly  bodies,  and  make  such  accurate 
calculations  as  men  of  old  could  not  make.  But 
when  we  deal  with  mind,  we  have  now  only  what 
others  who  first  philosophized  possessed.  We  un- 
derstand the  human  body  as  they  did  not,  and  es- 
pecially the  human  brain.  We  know  more  concern- 
ing psychic  phenomena  than  they  did;  but  unless 
we  are  content  to  rest  in  materialism,  this  sort  of 
knowledge  no  more  explains  the  puzzling  things 
which  are  associated  with  the  working  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  or  its  mysterious  instincts,  than  evolu- 
tion explains  how  life  began  on  this  planet.  As 
evolution  completes  its  task  when  it  tells  us  of  pro- 
cess, so  materialism  accounts  for  none  of  the 
higher  problems  of  the  soul,  when  it  shows  a  cer- 
tain dependence  of  mind  on  body. 

Granting  the  beauty  and  utility  of  the  theory 
of  evolution  and  gladly  accepting  it  for  the  most 
part  for  what  it  brings  and  gives,  still  where  it  is 
bound  up  with   materialism,  and,  in    its    extreme 


150  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

form,  professes  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the 
soul,  and  indeed  all  else,  upon  the  basis  of  the  po- 
tency of  matter — we  may  confidently  assert  that 
men  have  mistaken  an  account  of  a  process  for  an 
explanation  of  the  vital  truths  back  of  the  process. 
The  account  may  be  correct,  but  to  explain  the  ap- 
parent distance  of  the  sun  from  us  in  winter,  and 
its  vertical  rays  in  the  summer ;  its  eclipses  and 
its  relations  to  the  planets — by  mechanical  causes, 
is  not  to  account  for  the  establishment  of  such  an 
order  as  we  see,  kept  up  through  the  ages,  and  ad- 
justed so  nicely  to  the  wants  and  needs  of  men. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  enough  for  one  to  say  that  the 
theory  of  evolution  or  development  will  explain 
how  we  correct  the  errors  of  the  past  with  so 
much  assurance,  especially  in  matters  that  are 
purely  philosophical. 

Take  instances  already  given:  Socrates  caught 
from  Anaxagoras  the  suggestion  that  "reason" 
ruled  the  world.  With  this  suggestion  as  a  kind 
of  germ  for  development,  he  stressed  "concepts," 
assumed  the  spirit  of  man  to  be  immortal,  to  be 
rewarded  and  punished  as  it  was  virtuous  or 
vicious ;  made  virtue  equivalent  to  knowledge,  and 
finally  laid  the  foundations  for  a  theory  of  knowl- 
edge. Plato  took  the  wealth  of  suggestions  and 
theories  his  master  left,  added  to  them  the  riches 
of  the  philosophers  of  the  past  and  of  his  day; 
assorted,  combined,  added  to,  and  finally  presented 
to  the  world  what  may  be  known  as  the  Platonic 
system  of  truth — not  systematized,    but    in  great 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  151 

part  formulated  in  his  famous  Dialogues.  Plato 
hesitated  not  to  differ  from  Socrates,  to  correct 
and  add  to  what  he  had  said.  Aristotle  as  the  next 
link  in  the  chain,  did  for  Plato  much  what  Plato 
did  for  Socrates.  The  thing  worthy  of  note  in  all 
this  is  the  assurance  or  complacency  of  each  man 
when  he  made  an  innovation  upon  the  theories  of 
his  predecessor. 

Then  came  a  lull — a  lapse ;  but  when  men  began 
to  philosophize  again  in  what  is  known  as  the 
Modern  period,  they  just  as  boldly  corrected  the 
ancient  philosophers  as  they  gladly  accepted  much 
they  had  said.  The  age  from  Kant  to  Hegel  was 
the  golden  age  of  German  philosophical  thinking, 
but  today  we  as  mercilessly  dissect  Kant  or  Hegel 
as  they  did  those  before  them,  and  do  it  with  as 
much  complacency  as  if  we  supposed  wisdom  would 
die  with  us.  The  men  who  were  regarded  as  hav- 
ing spoken  the  last  word  on  the  subject  of  philoso- 
phy are  respected  for  their  mental  power  and  in- 
sight, but  are  forced  to  take  their  places  in  that 
ever  lengthening  line  of  plodders,  as  men,  it  may 
be,  of  unusual  or  even  epochal  insight,  but  men 
who  "knew  but  in  part";  in  the  meantime  the 
problems  which  consumed  these  men  have  become 
the  problems  of  our  day,  and  if  we  have  not  yet 
seen  the  truth  in  its  entirety,  we  at  least  see  where 
these  men  were  not  wholly  possessed  of  it. 

Whether  we  accept  or  not  the  truth  of  such  a 
thing  as  a  divine  revelation,  whose  highest  ex- 
pression is  found  in  the  New  Testament,  it  might 


152  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

be  asked  why  we  find  so  little  disposition  to  correct 
what  Jesus  or  Paul  have  said?  How  is  it  we  as- 
sume nothing  will  be  developed  in  thought  antago- 
nistic to  their  teachings? 

While  not  attempting  to  correct  what  they  said, 
we  do  seek  to  expand  the  principles  which  they 
enunciated  and  apply  them  to  everyday  life.  Why 
this  difference  in  the  treatment  of  the  assumed 
truths  of  speculative  philosophy  and  the  assumed 
truths  of  the  New  Testament?  Is  it  due  to  the 
fact  that  no  one  has  questioned  the  authenticity 
and  authority  of  the  latter?  Have  they  not  been 
the  point  of  attack  for  two  thousand  years? 

Those  who  accept  the  New  Testament  as  the 
most  complete  form  of  revelation  of  God  to  men 
see  in  what  is  known  as  "Pentecost"  the  beginning 
of  a  new  condition,  which  starts  the  race  upon  a 
new  course.  This  event,  and  the  experience  it 
brought  with  it,  has  elevated  the  race  to  where  it 
has  insight  such  as  was  not  possible  before.  It  is 
not  fanciful  to  say  that  from  that  event  on,  the 
spiritual  in  man  took  a  decided  upward  turn,  be- 
gan a  peculiar  course  in  development  such  as 
marks  the  close  of  one  great  cycle  in  the  life  of  man 
and  begins  another.  Being  possessed  of  a  Spirit 
that  before  was  not  his  in  the  sense  it  now  is,  man 
now,  in  union  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ — which  is 
one  with  the  Spirit  of  Truth — is  as  truly  develop- 
ing his  spiritual  nature  as  he  was  for  ages  devel- 
oping his  physical.  And  the  intuitions  of  man  are 
now  being  cultivated,  where  men  are  obedient  to 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  153 

the  truth,  as  never  before ;  consequently,  though 
reason  in  man  is  as  reason  has  ever  been,  intuition 
or  spiritual  instinct  will  come  to  the  aid  of  reason 
as  it  did  not  in  the  days  of  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers. Our  hope  that  we  shall  reach  philosophi- 
cal truth,  as  well  as  what  might  be  called  higher 
truth,  is  based  on  the  fact  that  the  same  Spirit 
that  leads  the  race  on  will  so  purify  us  from  pre- 
judice and  from  the  dross  of  worldliness  as  to  en- 
able us  intuitively  to  detect  error  and  just  as  intu- 
itively feel  the  force  of  truth.  Not  more  develop- 
ment then,  but  development  under  an  unerring 
Guide,  is  our  guarantee  that  thought  will  attain 
to  Truth. 

The  whole  movement  of  thought  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  track  of  a  spiral  railway  in  cross- 
ing the  Alps.  The  train  winds  round  the 
mountain,  plunges  into  a  tunnel,  and  seems  to 
traverse  again  the  same  track  it  passed  over 
a  short  while  before.  The  confused  traveler 
looks  out  of  the  car  window  to  see  ahead  of  him 
what  he  has  formerly  seen,  and  thinks  the  train 
has  lost  its  way  in  its  own  windings.  But  each  cir- 
cle round  the  mountain  has  carried  him  higher ; 
the  track  he  is  passing  over  and  the  tunnel  he  is 
passing  through,  while  on  the  same  curve,  are  not 
the  same.  In  the  meantime  the  strongest  evidence 
that  he  is  making  progress  is  his  ability,  ever  and 
anon,  to  get  a  glimpse  of  a  new  outlook.  A  snow- 
capped crown  appears  that  was  not  hitherto  vis- 
ible ;  a  beautiful  valley  for  the  first  time  is  spread 


154  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

at  his  feet.  At  length  the  summit  is  reached, 
where  the  panorama  of  the  Alps  is  spread  out  be- 
fore the  beholder! 

So  with  the  progress  of  thought.  We  have  al- 
ready advanced  far  enough  to  feel  assured  we  are 
not  merely  circling  the  mountain  of  Knowledge, 
for  we  have  glimpses  of  truths,  now  and  then, 
which  truths,  though  lost  to  view  for  a  time,  re- 
appear more  fully  and  to  abide.  Shall  we  ever 
reach  the  mountain-top?  Never  in  this  life;  but 
who  can  doubt  the  race  is  being  carried  onward 
towards  that  point  where  "we  shall  know  as  we 
are  known".''     Who  can  doubt  there  is 

"  One  far-off  divine  intent, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves  ?  " 

What  I  have  hitherto  said  has  been  somewhat 
general  in  its  character,  bearing  upon  the  persist- 
ence of  ideas  as  a  principle  without  specifying  any 
which  stand  out  as  though  race-wide. 

The  poet  Goethe  enunciated  the  doctrine,  since 
accepted  universally  by  botanists,  that  all  parts  of 
a  plant  are  but  variations  of  one  type,  viz.,  that 
of  the  leaf.  Later,  the  same  poet-philosopher  saw 
in  a  section  of  the  skull  of  a  sheep  the  suggestion 
that  every  single  bone  of  an  animal's  skeleton  is 
some  variation  of  the  vertebra.  Goethe's  insight 
led  to  a  discovery  of  such  unity  in  nature  as  had 
not  been  more  than  dreamed  of  hitherto.  The  fact 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  metamorphosis  of  plants 
had  its  parallel  in  the  animal  kingdom  should  not 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  155 

have  occasioned  much  surprise,  though  it  estab- 
lished a  much  more  extensive  unity  than  men  had 
before  supposed  existed.  Now  philosophers  and  sci- 
entists go  further  and  say  boldly  that  man  is  a 
miniature  world — a  microcosm — and  they  include 
his  mind  in  the  generahzation.  If  we  object  to 
such  an  assumption,  the  reply  is,  What  more  natu- 
ral than  that  this  should  be  so?  In  a  higher  sense 
than  the  English  poet  supposed,  we  say  "the 
proper  study  of  mankind  is  man" — individual  man. 
Just  as  the  medical  student  at  the  dissecting  table, 
when  studying  anatomy,  knows  that  he  has  before 
him,  subject  to  his  scalpel,  typical  man — so  he 
who  studies  mind,  has  in  the  individual  mind,  the 
general  outlines  of  the  mind  of  man  as  a  whole. 
Persistence  of  ideas,  therefore,  in  the  individual 
man  leads  naturally  to  the  thought  of  persistence 
of  ideas  as  seen  in  community  life,  in  the  province, 
the  nation,  the  various  races,  and  finally  the  hu- 
man race  as  a  whole. 

As  we  ascend  we  expect  to  find  fewer  ideas  com- 
mon to  the  class.  Human  instincts  are  the  same — 
though  peculiar  conditions  may  produce  what 
seem  to  be  wide  differences  and  varieties.  The 
wind  sighing  in  the  pine  forest,  or  roaring  in  the 
oak  woodland,  is  the  same  air  in  motion ;  the  sound 
varies  because  produced  by  different  mediums. 
Human  nature  is  capable  of  almost  infinite  vari- 
eties as  we  descend  to  minute  details,  but  there  are 
certain  great  fundamentals  upon  which  the  world 
of  mankind  is  practically  at  one.     Only  within  the 


156  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

last  few  years  has  this  truth  dawned  upon  the 
more  progressive  races  of  mankind,  as  the  result 
of  the  close  connection  nation  has  had  with  nation 
by  means  of  commerce,  by  world  congresses,  but 
particularly  through  the  labors  and  investigations 
of  the  tireless  Christian  missionaries.  The  Great 
Book  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  has  found  a 
response  in  the  hearts  of  even  the  most  degraded 
of  our  kind.  The  Book  thereby  proves  its  divinity 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  unity  of  the  human  race 
on  the  other.  It  also  proves  that  in  great  and  fun- 
damental matters  the  world  is  one. 

Perhaps  what  we  call  "provincialisms"  in  the 
realm  of  community  ideas  find  a  parallel  in  what 
is  known  as  national  or  race  peculiarities.  The 
same  forces  are  at  work  everywhere,  but  because  of 
some  variety  in  the  medium,  differences  appear 
which  are  not  so  pronounced  as  they  at  first  seem 
to  be.  We  sometimes  wonder  at  the  persistence  of 
an  error,  such  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Transmigra- 
tion of  Souls,  the  horrible  customs  connected  with 
the  Sacrifice  of  Human  Life  for  supposed  sin,  as 
seen  in  pagan  countries.  But  a  close  study  of 
causes  and  aims  often  reveals  more  to  be  pitied 
than  blamed. 

Take  as  an  illustration  of  the  persistence  of  an 
error  a  doctrine  which  has  always  fascinated  a 
certain  type  of  men,  even  to  this  good  day,  viz., 
the  doctrine  of  Ideas  as  enunciated  by  Plato.  At 
first  we  are  astonished  at  the  suggestion  that  a  man 
of  Plato's  mental  astuteness  and  saneness,  could 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  157 

have  believed  that  only  the  Ideal  Man  existed,  and 
that  men,  as  seen  in  the  world,  were  but  as  shadows, 
reflecting  however,  each  in  his  degree  something  of 
the  Eternal  Typical  Man.  Plato  taught  that  man 
as  seen  on  earth,  partakes  of  the  nature,  or  en- 
ters into  the  nature,  of  the  Ideal  Man  in  various 
degrees.  Take  this  theory  however,  and  compare 
it  with  Christian  revelation,  especially  as  it  is 
worked  out  in  Paul's  epistles,  and  note  the  parallel. 
Christ  called  Himself  emphatically  "The  Son  of 
Man" — the  typical  Man,  as  well  as  the  point  of 
union  for  the  race.  He  is  the  Eternal  Man,  who 
becomes  the  source  of  life  eternal  to  all  who  par- 
take of  His  life,  and  to  all  who  become  one  with 
Him  so  far  as  to  reflect  Him.  Revelation  has  no 
place  for  eternal  life  as  set  over  against  "death," 
aside  from  union  with  Christ.  The  Christian 
scheme  preserves  our  identity  and  thereby  meets 
the  instincts  of  the  human  soul:  but  there  is  more 
than  a  suggestive  parallel  between  the  theory  of 
the  Greek  Philosopher  and  the  mystical  doctrine 
of  our  union  with  Christ  as  now  preached  and  un- 
derstood. 

We  conclude  therefore  that  the  secret  of  the  per- 
sistence of  much  that  is  erroneous  in  the  world,  es- 
pecially where  men  are  sincere,  is  in  the  ele- 
ment of  truth  which  the  error  contains. 

The  Doctrine  of  Transmigration  of  Souls  is  but 
another  form  of  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory — seek- 
ing to  explain  and  satisfy  man's  sense  of  unfitness 
for  the  life  he  feels  he  is  destined  to  enjoy  here- 


158  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

after  if  he  lives  up  to  his  privileges  here.  The  hor- 
rible sacrifice  of  human  life  on  the  part  of  pagan 
peoples,  especially  at  the  death  of  some  celebrity, 
finds  its  cause  in  a  desire  to  make  some  sort  of  an 
atonement  for  calamity  which  the  gods  are  sup- 
posed to  have  brought  upon  a  people,  and  to  ap- 
pease those  spirits  which,  human  or  divine,  might 
do  great  harm  if  atonement  is  not  made  for  the 
wrongs  they  are  supposed  to  have  suffered. 

There  are  at  least  two  ideas  which  all  nations 
and  races  seem  to  have  in  common,  and  which  are 
bound  up  with  our  very  being.  These  two  ideas 
persist  in  the  human  race,  as  a  whole,  much  as 
certain  other  ideas  persist  for  a  time  in  community 
or  natural  life.  The  Idea  of  God  and  the  Idea  of 
the  Soul's  Indestructibility, — at  least  of  its  Life 
after  Death, — are  the  two  ideas  which  may  be 
termed  fundamental,  and  which  have  always  been 
present  in  some  form  in  the  minds  of  men,  and 
amidst  much  misconception  and  positive  error, 
have  persisted,  and  we  are  sure  will  persist,  while 
man  exists  on  this  planet. 

As  to  the  Idea  of  God,  no  extended  argument 
and  no  extensive  quotations  from  a  varied  and  rich 
literature  on  the  subject,  would  seem  necessary, 
since  the  final  conclusions  to  which  the  mos^ 
thoughtful  of  men  have  come  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  words,  "The  being  of  God  is  a  necessary  and 
ultimate  principle  of  reason,  involved  in  the  con- 
stitution of  man  as  rational."  In  the  discussion 
of  the  persistence  of  the  idea  of  God  we  may  with 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  159 

but  a  brief  review  of  the  expressions  of  discrimin- 
ating thinkers  on  this  subject,  pass  on  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  kindred  idea,  of  the  Soul's  Im- 
mortahty,  and  then  to  the  more  interesting  work 
of  seeking  the  cause  for  this  persistence  in  both 
instances. 

The  Idea  of  God  is  one  that  will  not  down. 
While  God  may  be  called  Power,  Absolute,  World- 
Ground,  Something-not-ourselves  which  makes  for 
Righteousness,  Force,  Cause,  Unknown,  and  many 
other  terms,  the  same  Being  is  meant,  and  like 
Paul,  we  take  our  stand  and  preach  the  God  of 
revelation  to  those  who  have  erected  altars  to  Un- 
known Gods. 

Herbert  Spencer  has  said:  "The  persistence  of 
the  universe  is  the  persistence  of  that  Unknown 
Cause,  Power  or  Force  which  is  manifested  to  us 
through  all  phenomena."  Feuerbach  says:  "It  is 
a  general  truth  that  we  feel  a  blank,  a  void,  a  want 
in  ourselves  and  consequently  are  unhappy  and 
unsatisfied,  so  long  as  we  have  not  come  to  the  last 
degree  of  a  power,  to  that,  than  which  nothing 
greater  can  be  thought."  Zeller  says :  "The  spirit 
of  man  cannot  be  satisfied  till  it  finds  in  every 
force  the  manifestation  of  an  original  force,  and 
in  all  beings  the  product  of  an  original  Being ;  till 
the  checkered  manifoldness  of  particular  laws  is 
brought  back  to  highest  unity."  Sir  William 
Hamilton  says:  "From  Xenophanes  to  Leibnitz, 
the  infinite,  the  absolute,  the  unconditioned,  formed 
the  highest  principle  of  speculation."     Agnostics, 


160  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Pantheists,  Materialists,  Deists, — all  agree  with 
Theists  in  this :  Absolute  Being  exists  as  the  first 
principle  of  reason.  Even  Comte  was  forced  to 
"make  a  God"  after  he  had  found  no  place  for  one 
in  his  system.  If  Kant,  in  his  "Critique  of  Pure 
Reason"  shut  out  God,  on  the  ground  that  we  are 
incompetent  to  deal  by  means  of  reason  with  such  a 
subject,  he  showed  the  persistence  of  the  idea  of 
God  the  more  pointedly  in  his  subsequent  "Critique 
of  the  Practical  Reason,"  where  he  tells  us  the 
practical  reason  affirms  what  the  pure  reason  dare 
not.  Kant  found  it  positively  necessary  to  postu- 
late God,  not  "to  please  his  old  servant  Lampe," 
as  Heine  sarcastically  says,  but  because  Kant  had 
a  sane  mind  and  saw  too  clearly  the  presence  of 
certain  fundamental  ideas  of  the  race  to  ignore  this 
greatest  of  them  all. 

Perhaps  the  persistence  of  the  Idea  of  God  has 
not  been  more  satisfactorily  or  pertinently  ex- 
pressed than  in  Dr.  Samuel  Harris'  "Self-revela- 
tion of  God":  "(This  idea)  persists,"  he  says,  "in 
the  implicit  consciousness,  regulating  thought, 
even  when  theoretically  disclaimed.  It  is  evident 
without  the  assumption,  explicit  or  implicit,  that 
the  absolute  Being  exists,  the  reason  of  man  can 
not  solve  its  necessary  problems,  nor  rest  satisfied 
with  any  intellectual  attainment,  nor  hold  stead- 
fastly to  the  reality  of  knowledge,  nor  know  the 
continuity,  the  unity  and  the  reality  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  absolute  Being  exists  is  a  primitive 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  161 

and  necessary  law  of  thought,  a  constituent  of 
reason,  and  a  necessary  postulate  in  all  thinking 
about  being." 

The  idea  of  Immortality  is  bound  up  with  the 
Idea  of  God.  There  was  deep  philosophy  in  the 
saying:  "Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also."  Yet 
just  as  we  find  no  attempt  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  find  it  everywhere 
assumed;  so  we  find  only  intimations  and  assump- 
tions of  immortality  in  the  Bible  till  "life  and  im- 
mortality are  brought  to  light"  in  the  revelation 
made  by  Christ. 

From  a  philosophical  stand-point  we  see  in  the 
nous  of  Anaxagoras,  the  hint  which  Socrates  re- 
ceived as  an  inspiration,  and  which  he  developed 
into  what  became,  from  his  time  on,  a  more  or  less 
clearly  defined  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  It  is 
usually  assumed  by  biblical  expositors  that  by  the 
8th  century,  B.  C,  the  Old  Testament  prophets 
had  formulated  for  the  Hebrews  a  tolerably  well- 
defined  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  The  growth  of 
this  doctrine  in  the  Old  Testament,  from  vague 
and  nebulous  beginnings,  but  makes  the  parallel 
between  the  growth  of  the  idea  of  immortality  in 
the  pagan  world  and  the  growth  of  it  in  the  Jewish 
world,  the  more  interesting.  When  we  come  later 
to  speak  of  causes  back  of  these  fundamental  ideas, 
this  parallel  will  receive  some  attention. 

When  once  the  idea  of  immortality  took  hold  of 
man,  it  so  fully  fell  in  with  his  higher  instincts — 
was  so  much  like  a  complicated  key  fitting  a  com- 


162  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

plicated  lock — that,  despite  arguments  to  the  con- 
trary— some  of  them  cogent  and,  for  the  time,  ap- 
parently unanswerable — the  idea  of  an  existence 
for  man  which  extended  into  the  unknown  beyond, 
has  persisted  to  this  day.  "Plato,  thou  reasonest 
well,"  has  been  extorted  from  every  fair-minded 
man;  while  the  majority  of  enlightened  mankind 
has  quietly  assumed  a  doctrine  to  be  true  which  is 
intertwined  with  the  very  existence  and  spirituality 
of  God.  God,  the  absolute  spirit,  Man  His  crea- 
ture, made  in  "His  image,"  and  having  a  strong 
instinct  for  immortality,  because  he  was  made  to 
live  with  God — this  prevails  as  against  all 
forms  of  atheism,  materialism,  and  skepticism. 

In  the  course  of  reasoning  on  the  subject  of  the 
persistence  of  ideas,  and  especially  of  certain  fun- 
damental ones  which  belong  to  the  race  as  a  whole, 
we  must  sooner  or  later  meet  the  question:  What 
is  back  of  this  persistence.''  To  that  part  of  the 
subject  I  now  turn.  Why  do  fundamental  ideas 
persist  in  the  race.'' 

The  first  reason  I  give  is  the  one  which  grows 
out  of  the  physical  nature  of  man — his  hereditary 
tendencies.  Some  would  tell  us  this  is  the  only 
cause  for  persistence  of  ideas.  And,  though  we 
reject  this  wholesale  assumption,  no  harm  can 
come  to  truth  by  facing  facts  as  we  have  them  pre- 
sented to  us,  even  though  those  facts  have  been  in- 
terpreted by  others  differently  from  what,  as  it 
may  appear  to  us,  they  should  have  been.  We  can 
not,  for  example,  deny  much  that  is  true  in  evolu- 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  163 

tion,  or  in  radical  biblical  criticism,  even  though 
we  cannot  go  to  the  lengths  some  do  in  drawing  in- 
ferences from  the  facts  as  they  are  supposed  to  be 
given.     So  in  the  matter  of  hereditary  tendencies. 

Those  who  have  studied  closely  savage  and  civ- 
ilized life,  or  the  development  of  a  people  from  vir- 
tual savagery  to  civilization,  are  struck  with  the 
changes  which  take  place  in  the  practical  disap- 
pearance of  certain  powers  once  utilized,  and  the 
development  of  others  not  before  possessed  to  any 
considerable  degree.  A  people  who  live  on  roots 
and  simple  grains,  who  dwell  in  huts  or  shelter 
themselves  under  even  more  temporary  lodges,  who 
fight  with  spears  and  arrows  and  hunt  game  or 
raise  a  few  cattle  for  meat — must  develop  Lheir 
motor  powers  rather  than  cultivate  the  fine  sen- 
sory distinctions  which  belong  to  more  civilized 
life.  The  keen  sensory  powers  of  the  savage,  plac- 
ing him  almost  on  a  level  with  the  highly  devel- 
oped senses  of  the  lower  animals,  and  associated 
wholly  with  motor  reactions,  are  not  utilized  for 
any  end  in  themselves.  Hence,  by  the  law  that  the 
used  becomes  the  developed,  we  find  tendencies  and 
keenness  of  sensory  perception  in  purely  practical 
affairs,  and  quickness  of  motor  reactions  in  self- 
defence,  in  contest  for  food, — all  transmitted  in 
considerable  degree  from  father  to  son. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  more  general  environment,, 
where  food,  clothing  and  shelter  come  from  a  great 
variety  of  sources,  and  men  meet  men  not  to  fight 
but  to  trade ;  where  the  avoidance  of  pain  and  the.- 


164  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

search  for  pleasure  give  color  to  all  of  man's 
efforts,  we  naturally  expect  to  find  keenly  devel- 
oped sensory  powers  in  relation  to  many  things 
which  the  savage,  or  the  same  people  once  in  sav- 
agery, had  little  ability  to  discern;  furthermore, 
certain  motor  reactions,  because  there  is  no  call  for 
their  use,  almost  disappear.  As  in  the  first  in- 
stance, where  the  sensory  keenness  in  regard  to  the 
few  things,  and  the  quick  and  sure  motor  reactions 
as  regard  the  essentials  of  life,  were  transmitted 
to  children ;  so  we  have  a  like  transmission  in  the 
case  of  more  advanced  civilization. 

This  then  is  the  basis  of  certain  ideas  purely 
from  the  standpoint  of  environment  and  heredity, 
or  from  what  might  be  called  the  physical  side  of 
our  nature.  The  ideas  thus  developed  have  refer- 
ence more  particularly  to  physical  needs.  But 
they  serve  to  give  us  a  hint  as  to  how  ideas  of  a 
more  spiritual  character  are  developed. 

Add  other  elements  to  the  one  just  given. 
Change  the  nation  and  give  it  other  environment; 
transplant  it  and  develop  in  it  new  powers  because 
of  new  demands.  Take  Israel  from  his  tents,  his 
simple  life  in  the  wilderness,  his  isolation,  and  give 
him  a  land  of  corn  and  wine,  spacious  houses  to 
dwell  in,  and  enemies  to  fight,  and  there  has  been 
added  what  must  sooner  or  later  develop  new  pow- 
ers ;  while  powers  which  served  well  in  the  wilder- 
ness will  now  have  become  extinct  for  want  of  use. 

Or  go  still  further:  Place  people  where  there 
will  be  general  intermarriage  with  other  nation- 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  165 

alities;  let  German,  Celt,  and  perchance  Semite 
mingle  their  blood  in  offspring,  and  let  the  in- 
herited tendencies  of  different  nations  and  even 
races  combine  in  children,  and  we  have  the  pos- 
sibility of  hitherto  unthought-of  tendencies,  both 
temporal,  and  shall  we  not  add,  spiritual? 

When  we  come  to  ideas  concerning  religion,  the 
philosophy  that  is  boldly  evolutional,  or  sordidly 
materialistic,  seeks  their  origin  in  the  first  place 
in  fear.  This  was  the  theory  of  Lucretius,  after- 
wards espoused  by  Hume.  Man,  being  timid  and 
superstitious,  projects  his  own  life  into  all  ob- 
jects, and  either  creates  a  man-god,  which  is 
simply  a  giant  man,  capable  of  protecting  him,  or 
lets  his  superstition  lead  him  to  create  a  monstros- 
ity which  he  seeks  to  appease  by  every  form  of 
sacrifice. 

Others  tell  us  that  religious  ideas  come  of 
dreams,  trances,  and  the  like.  Men  have  imagined 
themselves,  while  asleep,  in  communication  with 
spirits  which  they  could  not  approach  while  awake. 
From  this  as  a  hint,  it  is  an  easy  transition,  some 
think,  to  people  the  air  with  spirits,  and  even  guar- 
dian spirits. 

Others  would  say  that  religion  came  of  reflective 
thought — as  the  result  of  philosophizing  on  life. 
The  best  reply  to  this  is  that  men  indicate  their  re- 
ligious tendencies  long  before  they  become  philo- 
sophical. Perhaps  it  were  better  to  say  that  men 
become  philosophers  because  they  have  a  religious 
nature. 


166  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Now,  while  the  above  theories  are  rejected,  it  is 
but  justice  to  what  is  perhaps  true  to  say  that  the 
influence  of  fear,  and  even  of  dreams,  on  the  savage 
cannot  be  ignored.  What  has  been  taken  by  some 
to  be  the  origin  of  religious  ideas,  a  saner  philoso- 
phy and  theory  will  take  to  be  the  origin  of  error 
in  religion.  By  means  of  fear  and  superstition 
and  because  of  dreams  ignorantly  interpreted,  men 
have  sadly  deflected  the  rays  of  truth,  which  might 
otherwise  have  indicated  the  source  whence  those 
rays  came. 

Turning  again  to  the  ideas  men  get  from  their 
practical  contact  with  things  about  them,  we  find 
that  where  there  are  no  dormant  powers  there  will 
be  no  development.  We  know  nothing  of  a  keenly 
developed  eye-sight  or  hearing  where  there  was  no 
organ  and  nerve,  to  begin  with.  As  life  comes  of 
life,  so  highly  developed  senses  come  of  less  highly 
developed,  or,  it  may  be,  very  rudimentary  ones. 

So  it  is  with  our  ideas  concerning  religion.  Fear, 
dreams,  and  other  causes  may  be  given  as  explana- 
tions of  the  development  of  such  ideas,  but  even 
granting  that  they  have  a  part  in  that  develop- 
ment, still  we  must  see  that  without  the  presence 
of  such  ideas  in  embryo,  there  would  be  no  develop- 
ment. Furthermore,  the  after  development  of  these 
ideas, — their  purification  and  the  ultimate  reach 
they  attain, — all  go  to  show  that,  though  aff'ected 
by  certain  causes  in  primitive  man,  these  ideas 
finally  find  their  rest  in  God,  their  element,  and 
prove  thereby  that  they  were  originally  inspired  by 
Him. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  167 

I  have  noted  above  that  what  is  enduring  in  na- 
tional or  race  character  comes  of  motor  reactions 
inherited  from  past  generations.  The  development 
of  the  sensory  powers  to  such  an  extent  that  certain 
ideas  stand  out  vividly,  forms  the  basis  of  motor 
activity,  and  motor  activity  gives  a  basis  to  per- 
sistence of  race  ideas.  Language  aids  as  a  kind  of 
footing,  but  nothing  can  take  the  place  of  the  re- 
sponse of  the  man  himself.  The  tiny  quail,  just 
hatched  from  the  shell,  will  hide  in  the  grass  upon 
seeing  the  face  of  man.  The  domestic  fowl, 
though  originally  wild,  and  just  as  ready  in  its 
wild  state  to  flee  from  man,  shows  now  no  fear. 
This  is  an  illustration  of  heredity  in  the  lower 
forms  of  life  indicative  of  something  in  its  higher 
forms.  The  principle  is  the  same.  Motor  reac- 
tions, inherited  from  the  generations  persist  when 
vivid  sensory  excitement  arouses  the  brain  to 
action. 

We  can  make  no  exception  of  religious  ideas 
when  we  take  a  perfectly  fair  view  of  the  whole 
situation.  Perhaps  I  had  better  say  we  must  in- 
clude in  the  part  which  heredity  plays  much  of 
the  susceptibility  of  individuals  and  nations  to 
ideas  concerning  religion  based  on  the  response 
which  ancestors  have  given  to  what  might  be 
termed  the  true  and  the  false  in  religion.  The 
horror  the  Jew  has,  to  this  day,  of  idolatry  in  any 
form,  even  to  a  mere  painting  which  is  supposed 
to  represent  heavenly  things,  is  to  a  great  degree 
an  inheritance,  intensified  of  course  by  early  train- 


168  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

ing.  And  where  the  Jew  is  approached  with  an 
appreciation  of  his  past  history,  he  is  found  even 
now  to  have  a  spiritual  susceptibility  and  discern- 
ment in  matters  which  concern  revealed  religion 
that  indicate  only  too  clearly  the  result  of  genera- 
tions of  development  in  things  of  the  spirit.  Some 
of  our  best  Christian  commentators  have  been  men 
of  the  Jewish  race. 

The  trouble  with  non-theistic  theorizers  has  been 
that  they  have  supposed  they  explained  the  origin 
of  religion  when  they  indicated  some  of  the  ele- 
ments which  had  to  do  with  its  development,  albeit 
those  very  elements,  left  to  themselves,  taking  hold 
on  man's  instincts  for  God,  would  have  landed  the 
race  in  gross  error.  We  must  look  for  a  Spirit  of 
Truth  in  the  world,  if  we  would  find  the  true  key 
to  unlock  the  difficulty  which  this  phase  of  the 
subject  presents  to  us. 

To  sum  up  then :  We  find  in  the  much  talked-of 
law  of  heredity,  but  another  form  of  the  biblical 
promise  that  blessings  will  follow  the  children  of 
the  good  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  and 
that  spiritual  unsusceptibility  in  children  will  be 
one  of  the  results  of  ignoring  the  claims  of  God 
upon  the  soul  of  man.  The  question  as  to  the  origin 
of,  or  the  capacity  for,  religion  is  not  even  touched 
by  the  law  of  heredity.  To  develop  any  power  in 
man  we  must  first  have  that  power  in  germinal 
form  to  begin  with.  Man  is  a  religious  being,  be- 
cause God  so  made  him.  It  is  part  of  man's  very 
constitution.  If  that  tendency  or  faculty  in  him  is 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  169 

awakened  or  developed  by  error,  man  will  be 
swayed  by  superstition,  all  forms  of  idolatry,  and 
be  plunged  into  misery  by  the  very  powers  which 
are  the  highest  he  possesses.  To  prevent  this  the 
God  who  gave  him  a  religious  nature  has  given  him 
a  revelation  of  Himself  in  what  we  call  the  Bible. 
Not  only  so,  when  man  has  once  caught  sight  of 
the  truth,  nature  falls  in  with  the  whole  scheme  of 
revelation  as  seen  in  the  Bible,  and  over  all  the 
Spirit  of  Truth  is  seen  to  preside,  "enlightening 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  God  and 
Immortality,  as  two  fundamental  ideas,  are  two 
inseparable  ones.  They  persist  in  the  race  be- 
cause they  belong  to  man's  very  nature. 

Turning  from  heredity  and  other  purely  physi- 
cal causes  to  something  of  a  purely  mental  charac- 
ter, I  think  we  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  ideas 
persist  because  Reason  in  its  very  nature  must 
seek  rest  for  itself.  We  see  this  tendency  in  young 
children  taking  the  form  of  questions. 

"The  Reason  Why"  impels  men,  and  in  propor- 
tion as  they  have  power  to  appreciate  the  truth. 
Probably  if  we  but  saw  the  world  as  God  intended 
we  should,  not  a  star  twinkles,  nor  a  flower  nods  in 
the  breeze,  not  a  voice  is  heard  in  nature,  nor  a 
calamity  overtakes  man,  but  is  designed  to  make  us 
ask  questions  and  get  thereby  such  knowledge  as 
will  be  for  the  betterment  of  the  race. 

At  the  first  of  their  philosophizing  men  found 
rest  for  Reason  in  the  idea  that  everything  in  the 
world  could    be    explained   by  water,  fire,  or    air. 


170  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

When  the  suggestion  of  a  nous  or  intellect  was 
made  by  Anaxagoras,  mind  became  the  subject- 
matter  of  philosophy  and  everything  else  a  puzzle. 
Then  the  question  arose,  What  must  be  done  with 
everything  that  is  not  mind?  Again,  How  can 
mind  have  any  sort  of  dealing  or  communication 
with  matter? 

To  find  rest  for  his  reason,  Plato  in  part  laid 
hold  of,  and  in  part  created,  the  famous  doctrine 
of  Reminiscence,  which  in  the  light  of  our  present 
knowledge  of  what  heredity  does  for  us,  has  in  it 
an  element  of  truth.  But  Plato  went  the  whole 
length  of  believing  that,  as  one  has  put  it,  "the  cat 
which  played  in  his  backyard  was  the  same  cat  that 
played  there  four  thousand  years  before."  The 
type  alone  abides  and  is  real:  everything  we  per- 
ceive is  merely  individual  and  not  only  perishes  but 
never  had  an  existence  save  as  a  mere  shadow.  The 
shadow,  however,  may  serve  to  awaken  in  the  mind 
of  man  the  recollection  of  what  he  saw  in  his  pre- 
vious and  larger  life,  ere  he  was  limited  to  this  re- 
gion of  adumbrations.  A  man  of  earth  may  serve 
to  arouse  in  us  the  recollection  of  the  ideal  man  we 
knew  in  a  former  state,  and  thus  with  everything 
we  see. 

This  doctrine  which  Plato  seemed  to  take  se- 
riously gave  rest  to  his  mind,  and  he  lived  and  died 
in  the  faith.  Aristotle  rejected  much  that  was  to 
Plato  part  of  his  life;  but  Aristotle  in  turn  rested 
in  much  that  sounds  to  us  strange  and  curious, 
as,  for  instance,  when  he  says :  "there  is  a  limit  to 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  171 

space."  Yet  all  serious  philosophers,  such  as 
Leibnitz,  Kant,  Spinoza,  Fichte,  Hegel,  Locke — no 
matter  how  curious,  to  us,  their  theories,  or  how 
far  from  the  truth  we  now  think  they  were — clung 
tenaciously  to  their  philosophy  of  the  world,  the 
soul,  and  God,  as  essential  to  their  living  real  lives 
and  doing  real  work  in  the  world.  In  fact,  man 
must  have  a  philosophy,  and  the  more  serious  the 
man,  the  more  the  necessity  that  reason  find  rest  in 
what  a  man  can  live  by  and  die  by.  If  faith  be- 
comes our  support,  even  faith  must  not  antagonize 
reason. 

There  have  been  men  who  disregarded  this  im- 
pelling motive  to  seek  rest  for  the  mind,  and 
professed  to  be  of  those  who  have  sought  in  vain 
to  find  it  and  have  given  up  to  be  skeptics,  either 
by  the  name  of  agnostics  or  some  other.  Hume 
was  such  a  man.  Whatever  he  really  at  length  be- 
lieved, he  appears  in  the  history  of  thought's  prog- 
ress as  one  who  gave  up  the  problem  of  finding  in- 
tellectual or  spiritual  rest,  and  left  strong  argu- 
ments in  defense  of  his  course. 

It  is  said  that  in  the  early  life  of  Prof.  A.  B. 
Bruce  he  read  Strauss'  "Life  of  Jesus,"  and  the 
book  loosed  him  from  his  moorings,  so  far  as 
belief  in  the  actual  man  Jesus  was  concerned. 
About  the  same  time  the  young  "George  Eliot" 
read  the  same  book,  and  with  the  same  result. 
Their  after  actions  were  quite  different  however. 
George  Eliot  remained  a  skeptic  all  her  life.  Bruce 
resolved  to  find  rest  for  his  mind  and  soul  if  pos- 


172  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

sible,  and  quietly  but  with  infinite  pains,  examined 
all  the  facts  as  he  had  access  to  them,  became  sat- 
isfied that  the  position  of  Strauss  was  untenable, 
and  at  length  became  the  leading  Apologist  of  his 
country,  and  one  of  the  first  of  his  day  among  all 
such  writers.  What  Bruce  did  in  this  particular 
of  satisfying  himself  concerning  the  life  of  Jesus 
is  what  reason  urges  us  to  do  as  to  a  philosophy 
of  life. 

The  puzzle,  however,  is  why  men  have  been  per- 
mitted to  rest  so  long  and  so  complacently  in  gross 
error.  Some  claim  that  we  of  to-day  are  no  more 
certain  that  what  we  regard  as  true  is  really  so  than 
what  Plato  or  Aristotle  taught. 

I  freely  grant  the  gravity  of  the  question  thus 
confronting  us.  Yet  we  are  not  obliged  to  retreat 
before  it.  In  the  first  place  it  does  not  matter  so 
much  whether  we  believe  in  the  Copernican  or  Ptol- 
emaic theory  of  the  heavens ;  whether  we  are  Atom  - 
ists  or  believers  in  "four  elements" ;  whether  we 
think  space  limited  or  limitless ;  whether  we  are 
evolutionists  or  believers  in  the  most  literal  theory 
of  direct  creation.  It  does  matter,  however, 
whether  we  have  been  honest  in  our  search  for 
the  truth;  whether  we  have  loved  it  more  than 
ease,  fame  or  money.  One  who  knew  much 
philosophy  and  of  strictly  spiritual  things  said, 
that  at  best  "we  know  but  in  part."  But  he, 
and  even  the  pagan  Socrates,  would  shame  us 
if  we  sought  to  take  advantage  of  our  limited 
and  limiting  conditions,  to  give  over  the  attempt 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  173 

to  discover  truth  concerning  nature  and  mind,  and 
especially  where  that  truth  bears  directly  on  con- 
duct. Why  the  human  mind  in  the  past  has  rested 
so  complacently  in  error  in  its  philosophy  of  na- 
ture, and  why  reason  has  had  its  demands  so  com- 
pletely satisfied  in  what  was  afterwards  found  to 
have  in  it  little  of  truth,  we  cannot  fully  under- 
stand. It  would  seem  that  some  higher  instinct  or 
intuition  would  have  broken  in  upon  this  sleep  of 
ignorance,  but  we  cannot  forget  that  where  knowl- 
edge was  vitally  connected  with  conduct  a  Some- 
thing higher  than  reason  has  ever  urged  man  to 
seek  to  know  the  truth,  concerning  the  true,  the 
beautiful  and  the  good. 

Modern  biblical  scholarship  has  done  us  rare 
service  here  where  the  timid  and  ultra-conservative 
saw  only  destruction.  There  is  not  more  vagueness 
to  be  found  among  the  best  of  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers in  matters  they  gave  their  lives  to  fathom 
than  is  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament  Writers 
concerning  the  great  truths  of  which  they  are  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  special  custodians.  Why 
were  these  Old  Testament  men  so  imperfect  and 
unsatisfactory  in  their  notions  of  the  soul's  immor- 
tality, a  future  life,  God's  Fatherhood,  and  the 
attitude  of  God  to  the  world  outside  the  Jewish 
nation.'*  I  am  aware  that  to  present  another  diffi- 
culty is  not  to  answer  the  first.  Wc  are,  however, 
accustomed  to  see  nothing  remarkable  in  the  colos- 
sal ignorance  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  concerning 
the  processes  of  nature ;  neither  are  we  shocked  to 


174  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

find  that  while  thej  are  regarded  as  the  people 
through  whom  God  made  special  revelations  to  the 
world,  their  knowledge  was  mixed  with  much  that 
was  dross.  In  some  very  essential  matters  they 
rested  complacently  in  what  was  very  far  from 
the  truth. 

But  did  they  not  aspire  after  mental  or  soul 
rest  and  find  it  ?  Read  the  "Book  of  Psalms,"  that 
volume  which  gives  the  heart-throbs  of  the  nation, 
and  see  if  the  cry  of  the  soul  was  not  "for  God, 
the  living  God."  Note  how  the  psalmist  panted  as 
the  hart  for  the  water  brooks,  after  knowledge  that 
was  essential  to  conduct.  Note,  too,  the  beautiful 
lives  those  men  were  able  to  live,  in  spite  of  their 
partial  and  very  imperfect  knowledge.  In  all  this 
we  have  at  least  the  suggestion  of  an  answer  why 
the  mind  can  rest  in  what  is  practical  error:  It 
may  do  so  if  the  few  essential  truths  that  make  for 
character  have  been  discovered. 

We  see  then,  that  while  it  is  the  nature  of  truth 
to  seek  those  who  will  accept  it  and  give  expression 
to  it  in  language — there  are  a  few  fundamental 
truths  or  ideas  that  have  persisted  and  will  con- 
stantly persist,  during  the  existence  of  the  race — 
because  they  are  the  few  ideas  which  are  bound  up 
with  true  living,  so  that  to  do  violence  to  them 
means  to  do  violence  to  life  itself.  And  whether 
that  man's  name  be  Confucius,  Buddha,  Socrates 
or  Paul — he  who  discovers  these  truths  has  come 
to  be,  in  a  measure  at  least,  "in  tune  with  the  In- 
finite." 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  175 

This  leads  naturally  to  the  last  reason  I  shall 
give  for  the  persistence  of  certain  ideas,  viz.,  the 
presence  and  power  of  intuitions.  When  a  corre- 
spondent of  the  poet  Browning  thanked  the 
author  of  "La  Saisaiz"  for  invigorating  her  faith 
by  means  of  the  suggestions  the  poem  contained, 
the  poet  replied  that  he  had  been  aware  of  the  com- 
munication of  something  more  subtle  than  a  ratio- 
cinative  process  when  the  convictions  of  "genius" 
thrilled  his  soul  to  its  depths.  Hegel  asks :  "Who 
is  not  acute  enough  to  see  a  great  deal  in  his  sur- 
roundings which  is  really  far  from  being  what  it 
ought  to  be.f*"  But  what  of  this  "ought -to-be" 
that  persists  in  the  best  of  the  race.''  Socrates  has 
made  us  familiar  with  the  idea  of  a  "demon"  or 
"divine  voice"  such  as  that  which  guided  the  great 
Grecian  teacher, — exercising  now  its  restraining 
influence,  and  at  times  manifesting  itself  so  unmis- 
takably that  Socrates  would  not  disobey  it  even  to 
save  his  life. 

That  men  read  with  appreciation  of  such  an  ex- 
perience on  the  part  of  the  ancient  philosopher 
proves  the  universal  character  of  the  experience 
which  this  good  man  in  the  earlier  days  felt  so 
keenly.  When  Matthew  Arnold  speaks  of  a  "Some- 
thing-not-ourselves  which  makes  for  righteousness," 
which  he  discovered  to  be  playing  upon  the  soul  of 
man,  he  was  but  echoing  in  other  terms  the  expe- 
rience of  Socrates.  When  Immanuel  Kant,  coldly 
philosophical  and  hating  mysticism,  had  closed  up 
the  mind  against  God  so  far  as  reason  was  con- 


176  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

cemed,  he  found  a  "categorical  imperative" — the 
postulate  of  the  "practical  reason" — which  pro- 
vided a  foothold  for  faith.  Kant  in  this  but  put 
in  other  terms  what  Socrates,  Browning,  Arnold 
and  others  have  expressed,  each  in  his  own  way, 
while  referring  to  the  same  "spirit  in  man." 

In  speaking  of  the  persistence  of  ideas  we  have 
encountered  something  in  "intuitions,"  as  I  have 
called  them,  which  is  more  than  an  "idea."  Intui- 
tions help  us  to  understand  why  ideas  of  a  certain 
sort  persist,  but  we  must  now  use  the  term  "ideal" 
rather  than  idea,  and  remember  that  a  principle 
rather  than  a  process  is  being  dealt  with  when  we 
grapple  with  the  mysetrious  "something"  which  so 
many  men,  and  especially  so  many  good  and  highly 
gifted  men,  have  experienced  and  have  called  by 
names  so  various. 

We  are  driven  at  once  to  see  that  an  ideal  or 
principle  which  has  had  such  influence  upon  the 
teachers  of  the  human  race  is  not  itself  a  mere 
whim  or  empty  notion,  but  must  have,  if  we  may 
so  express  it,  objective  validity — at  least  there 
must  be  a  "pattern  on  the  mount"  somewhere  if  we 
elevate  this  variously  interpreted  and  named 
"sense  of  things"  into  a  criterion. 

This  criterion  that  we  thus  are  forced  to  make 
more  real  than  the  ideas  which  we  test  by  reference 
to  it,  is  especially  prominent  in  the  region  of 
morals.  Henry  Jones,  in  his  volume  on  "Browning 
as  a  Philosophical  and  Religious  Teacher,"  says 
suggestively:     "The  consciousness  that  the  ideal 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  177 

is  the  real  explains  the  fact  of  contrition.  To  be- 
come morally  awakened  is  to  become  conscious  of 
the  vanity  and  nothingness  of  the  past  life,  as  con- 
fronted with  the  new  ideal  implied  in  it.  The  past 
life  is  something  to  be  cast  aside  as  a  false  show, 
just  because  the  self  which  experienced  it  was  not 
realized  in  it.  Thus  man's  true  life  lies  in  the 
realization  of  his  ideal,  and  his  advancement 
towards  it  is  his  coming  to  himself.  It  is  a  power 
that  irks,  till  it  finds  expression  in  moral  habits 
that  accord  with  its  nature,  i.e.,  till  the  spirit  has, 
out  of  its  environment,  created  a  body  adequate 
for  itself." 

To  say  that  such  a  criterion  is  in  the  very  con- 
stitution of  man  but  inevitably  leads  us  to  ask: 
How  did  it  get  there  ?  We  have  seen  that  heredity 
(and  to  this  may  be  added  all  that  is  involved  in 
early  training)  explains  in  part  the  peculiar  de- 
velopment of  certain  ideas,  even  in  the  realm  of 
religion.  Heredity  also,  as  has  been  seen,  with  the 
associated  power  of  environment,  is  a  prolific 
source  of  error.  The  latent  and  universal  tenden- 
cies or  ideas  which  fear,  dreams,  etc.,  can  arouse 
and  develop,  in  no  way  explains  the  pres- 
ence of  these  ideas  in  their  possibility.  And  wlien 
the  principle  or  criterion,  which  corrects  the  false 
in  religion,  even  where  the  creeds  or  theories  re- 
main mixed  with  much  dross,  and  which  elevates 
good  men  far  above  their  creeds  and  times,  is  to  be 
explained,  heredity  and  training  are  altogether  in- 
adequate.    We  are  forced  to  postulate  a  Power,  a 


178  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Person,  a  Spirit,  back  of  such  intuitions  or  guiding 
principle.  The  idea  of  God  and  the  idea  of  the 
soul's  immateriality  and  immortality  are  thus  in- 
separably bound  up  with  the  presence  and  power 
of  "a  Spirit  in  man,"  which  Spirit  belongs  to  him 
by  right  of  his  origin.  This  is  particularly  satis- 
factory as  a  key  to  life  if  we  accept  biblical  reve- 
lation, especially  now  that,  since  Pentecost,  this 
Spirit  has  become  in  a  sense  not  before  expe- 
rienced, the  "Spirit  of  Christ" — given  to  lead 
those  who  obey  Him  "into  all  truth." 

That  which  puzzled  Socrates  and  which  remains 
a  puzzle  to  all  those  who  reject  the  doctrine  of  the 
"inspiration  of  the  prophets"  of  old,  is  intelligible 
to  the  man  who  sees  in  Socrates,  and,  in  fact,  in 
every  good  and  wise  man,  ideals  which  are  higher 
than  he  or  his  people ;  we  sec  the  "light  which  light- 
eth  every  man  which  cometh  into  the  world,"  espe- 
cially manifesting  its  illuminating  power  where 
men  are  willing  to  be  guided  by  its  beams.  When 
we  read  that  Confucius,  the  Socrates  of  China, 
taught  men  to  "live  as  Heaven  commands,"  we  are 
not  told  whether  he  meant  by  "heaven"  a  mechani- 
cal power,  or  a  personal  God;  but  one  who  has 
made  a  special  study  of  this  subject,  himself  a 
gifted  scholar  from  the  Chinese  nation,  says  Con- 
fucius meant  a  personal  God.  If  so,  he  but  saw 
dimly  what  we  in  more  favorable  conditions  have 
seen  with  more  clearness — the  presence  of  God 
guiding  the  race,  and  especially  those  who  would 
submit  themselves  to  His  guidance.     Socrates  and 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  179 

all  good  men  of  pagandom  differed  not  so  much  in 
kind  as  in  degree  from  the  prophets  of  old,  who,  as 
God's  chosen  mediums  to  the  world,  were,  in  a 
measure,  far  above  their  fellows,  endowed  with 
spiritual  insight  and  wisdom.  These  very  men  in 
their  prophecies  spoke  of  a  day  when  the  spirit  of 
prophecy  would  be  far  more  universal ;  when  a  man 
would  not  say  to  his  neighbor,  "know  the  Lord," 
but  when  the  law  should  be  written  in  human  hearts 
instead  of  on  tablets  of  stone.  This  had  reference 
to  a  day  when  the  few  especially  and  highly  in- 
spired should  give  place  to  something  like  universal 
inspiration,  though  perhaps  with  none  so  pre-emi- 
nently gifted  in  this  particular  as  those  "holy  men 
of  old"  who  "spoke  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

Accepting  as  I  do  most  thankfully  and  heartily 
the  doctrine  of  the  presence  in  the  world  of  a 
Spirit,  which  Spirit  is  God  in  His  fulness, — the 
persistence  of  certain  ideas  becomes  to  me  the  most 
natural  thing  which  could  happen.  If  a  Spirit  of 
Trust  exists,  and  is  immament  in  men,  the  question 
of  a  criterion  is  at  once  fixed  and  explained.  The 
yearnings,  longings,  the  glimpses  of  truth,  and 
other  inexplicable  intuitions  of  the  race — all  be- 
come plain  and  even  necessary.  Such  a  Spirit 
could  not  brood  over  human  hearts  and  not  find 
here  and  there  a  response,  so  that  men  stirred  to 
the  depths  of  their  natures,  and  realizing  an  ideal 
of  the  beautiful,  the  pure  and  good  struggling 
within  them  for  utterance,  must  of  necessity  speak 


180  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

wiser  than  they  know  and  give  forth  truth  in  the 
form  of  hint  or  parable  which  the  ages  after  would 
understand  better  than  the  men  who  originally 
gave  forth  those  utterances. 

Accepting  this  Spirit  in  the  world,  I  can  under- 
stand how  truth  begins  in  obscure  hints  and  prog- 
resses to  clearness  and  sharply  defined  outline.  I 
can  see  how  truth  under  such  a  Spirit's  leading  will 
be  more  and  more  purified,  till  practically  all  the 
dross  will  be  gone.  Ideas  under  the  Spirit's  guide- 
ance,  struggling  with,  and  even  against,  man's  pre- 
judices and  actual  resistance,  will  naturally  take 
what  seems  to  those  who  study  the  trend  of  thought 
in  after  ages,  a  zig-zag  course.  This  could  hardly 
be  otherwise.  Men  cling  to  their  intellectual  moor- 
ings long  after  they  have  been  convinced  of  the 
error  of  their  beliefs,  and  hesitating  concerning 
their  course,  they  are  finally  moved  as  the  pendu- 
lum swings ;  so  we  have  "pendulation"  in  thought. 

The  Spirit's  presence  in  the  world  and  in  man 
makes  clear  the  struggle  to  make  actual  in  life  the 
ideals  which  the  Spirit  inspires.  The  Spirit  be- 
came personal  in  Christ.  The  presence  in  the  world 
of  an  Ideal  Man  both  fulfilled  a  longing  of  the 
human  heart  to  know  that  such  a  man  had  existed, 
and  made  it  clear  that  all  men  must  labor  to  realize 
in  their  lives,  if  led  by  this  same  Spirit,  that  "per- 
fection" which  the  Father  in  heaven  possesses,  and 
which  He  bids  us  possess  each  in  our  measure. 
Hence  all  real  progress  in  this  life  in  the  Spirit 
begins  with  contrition,  which  is  the  soul  rejecting 


PERSISTENCE  OF  IDEAS  181 

former  ideals,  or  realizing  at  length  the  claim  of 
the  ideal  which  all  along  was  struggling  to  assert 
its  rights,  but  which  was  hitherto  resisted. 

Finally  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  man 
makes  clear  why  the  fundamental  ideas  which  are 
inseparably  connected  with  the  actuality  and  pres- 
ence of  this  Spirit  in  man — such  as  God,  Immor- 
tality, and  Right  Living — will  not  down,  but, 
though  ignored,  or  suppressed  in  one  age,  or  by 
certain  of  the  race,  break  forth  in  some  form  of 
expression  in  another — sometimes  much  colored  by 
the  imperfect  character  of  the  mediums  of  expres- 
sion, but  still  quite  discernible  as  the  fundamental 
ideas  which  belong  to  the  race  because  the  race  had 
its  origin  in  God,  and  God  has  stamped  Himself 
on  every  member  of  it.  These  ideas  will  persist 
as  long  as  man  lives  on  this  planet,  and  their  sig- 
nificance will  be  fully  seen  when  "man  shall  know 
as  he  is  known." 


VI. 

ROBERT      BROWNING:      THE       SUBTLE 
ASSERTOR  OF  THE  SOUL 

Harriet  Martineau  once  said  to  Robert  Bro\oi- 
ing:  "There  is  no  need  for  you  to  study  German 
metaphysics,  you  are  German  enough  already." 
In  spite  of  striking  differences,  Browning  must 
suggest  to  the  discriminating  reader,  Immanuel 
Kant.  The  first  was  of  Scottish-German  descent; 
the  second  German-Scottish.  The  great  metaphy- 
sician gave  himself  almost  wholly  to  the  study  of 
Mind;  the  poet,  to  the  study  of  Soul.  They  were 
both  in  a  sense  agnostics.  Kant  insisted  like 
Browning  on  the  limitations  of  human  reason,  but 
assumed  that  there  was  what  he  called  the  "practi- 
cal reason"  which  enabled  man  to  postulate  with  as- 
surance what  mere  reason  could  not  affirm ;  so  that 
the  existence  of  the  soul  and  God  were  by  it  guar- 
anteed. Browning  took  much  the  same  stand,  but 
used  different  terms.  From  the  standpoint  of  mere 
intellect  the  poet  would  have  been  a  rank  agnostic, 
but  he  found  within  man  what  he  elected  to  call 
"heart,"  but  which  might  be  more  exactly  called 
"intuition":  this  the  poet  thought  affirmed  with 
emphasis  what  the  mere  "head"  was  not  compe- 
tent to  assert,  namely,  the  reality  of  God  and  the 
immortality  of  the  soul. 

Thus  both  Browning  and  Kant,  the  latter  by 
prosaic  metaphysics,  and  the  former  through  the 

182 


BROWNING  183 

medium  of  poetry  and  a  poetic  temperament, 
reached  beyond  agnosticism  to  positive  belief;  and 
while  both  have  been  misunderstood  and  misinter- 
preted, they  have  become  to  men  of  thought  bul- 
warks to  faith  in  God  and  the  Soul. 

Browning  was,  by  preeminence,  the  poet  of  the 
human  soul.  In  his  own  comments  on  the  char- 
acter of  "Sordello,"  he  tells  us  that  the  poem 
is  "a  study  of  the  development  of  a  soul,"  and 
then  adds :  "Nothing  else  is  of  any  consequence." 
Other  poets  have  at  times  given  their  strength 
to  soul-analysis,  and  have  produced  results  which 
may  rank  with  Browning's  best  in  this  par- 
ticular; but  no  poet  has  ever  given  himself  so  ex- 
clusively to  such  analysis.  Writing  for  fifty  years, 
and  producing  work  of  the  most  varied  character, 
and  from  every  conceivable  view-point.  Browning 
seems  to  have  had  no  pleasure  in  any  subject  in 
which  he  could  not  discover  the  workings  of  pas- 
sion, the  processes  of  casuistry,  the  daring  asser- 
tions of  the  soul's  intuitions,  and  the  all-conquer- 
ing power  of  love.  If  he  describes  natural  scen- 
ery, which  he  rarely  does,  he  subordinates  such 
description  to  his  main  theme,  namely,  the  myste- 
rious workings  of  the  spirit  of  man.  This  fact  is 
the  more  remarkable  in  view  of  what  Browning 
could  do  when  he  made  the  attempt.  He  was  sus- 
ceptible to  the  beauties  of  nature,  as  indeed  to 
every  form  of  beauty,  and  could  revel  in  mere 
description,  as  a  sample  selection  will  illustrate. 
No  man  could    have    written  the    following  lines 


184  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

who  failed  to  take  delight  in  expressing — if  for 
nothing  else  than  for  mere  expression's  sake — his 
impressions  of  natural  scenery: 

Above,  birds  fly  in  merry  flocks,  the  lark 

Soars  up  and  up,  shivery  for  joy; 

Afar  the  ocean  sleeps;  white  fishing  gulls 

Flit  where  the  strand  is  purple  with  its  tribe 

Of  nestled  limpets ;  savage  creatures  seek 

Their  loves  in  wood  and  plain — and  God  renews 

His  ancient  rapture.     Thus  He  dwells  in  all. 

From  life's  minute  beginnings,  up  at  last 

To  man — the  consummation  of  this  scheme 

Of  being,  the  completion  of  this  sphere  of  hfe. 

This  selection  from  "Paracelsus"  reminds  the 
reader  of  Shelley,  Wordsworth,  and  our  own  Bry- 
ant. Wordsworth  would  hardly  have  said,  in 
speaking  of  the  lark,  that  it  "shivered"  for  joy, 
but  Shelley  might  have  so  described  it.  Shelley 
would  not,  on  the  other  hand,  have  given  the  turn 
to  the  close  of  this  extract  that  Browning  has,  but 
Wordsworth  would,  to  the  extent  of  his  ability. 
Browning,  it  seems,  could  have  written  of  nature  in 
a  way  that  might  have  rivaled  the  poets  who  have 
been  looked  upon  as  nature's  very  high  priests:  we 
find  him,  however,  as  seen  in  the  quotation  just 
given,  being  drawn  as  by  irresistible  attraction  to 
the  polestar  of  his  thought — Man. 

Comparing  Browning  with  Shelley  and  Words- 
worth, we  can  say  with  a  discriminating  writer: 
"Shelley  turned  from  man;  Wordsworth  paid  him 
rare  visits ;  Browning  dwelt  with  him."     Shelley, 


BROWNING  185 

susceptible  to  every  form  of  beauty,  but  espe- 
cially to  beauty  in  nature,  was  at  the  same  time 
overwhelmed  by  the  presence  and  problem  of  evil. 
Wordsworth  lived  amidst  mountains,  rivulets,  dells 
— brooding,  moralizing,  composing  lines  addressed 
mainly  to  nature  or  descriptive  of  nature,  and  in- 
cidentally about  men  and  women.  Browning  saw 
in  the  soul  of  man,  despite  its  muddy  vesture,  that 
which  fascinated  him:  he  would  have  reversed  the 
Byronic  line  and  said:  "I  love  not  nature  less,  but 
man  the  more."  Browning's  very  manner  in  social 
life  indicated  his  genuine  interest  in  men.  Long- 
fellow, who  has  been  much  praised  for  his  democ- 
racy in  this  respect,  received  visitors  with  an  air 
of  resignation ;  Browning,  with  a  cordiality  that 
spoke  his  living  interest  in  everybody. 

There  are  at  least  three  names  which  are  sug- 
gested when  we  assert  that  Browning  is  preeminent 
among  those  who  stress  the  soul  in  song.  Those 
names  are  Dante,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe.  Can 
Browning's  claim  be  made  good  against  these.'' 

Dante  stands  apart.  In  some  particulars  he  is 
easily  supreme ;  but  not  as  poet  of  the  soul, — if  by 
that  is  meant  one  capable  of  laying  bare  the  inner 
man.  Dante  teaches  in  picture.  He  has  peopled  for 
us  the  spirit  world, — hell,  purgatory,  and  heaven 
— with  characters  that  instruct  by  their  place 
rather  than  by  their  self-revealing  words.  His 
devil  is  not  a  talking  one  like  that  of  Milton  or 
Goethe;  but  his  situation  and  surroundings  sug- 
gest that  place  may  speak  as  loud  as  words.    Only 


186  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

now  and  then  do  Dante's  characters  speak,  but 
even  then  they  do  not  reveal  their  characters  so 
much  by  their  words  as  by  their  looks,  acts,  or  sit- 
uations. We  judge  more  by  the  smile  of  Beatrice 
what  she  is  and  feels  than  by  her  philosophizing. 
Dante  is  an  allegorizer,  and  as  such  is  simply  un- 
approachable. When  he  has  located  men  and 
women  in  some  section  of  hell  or  some  circle  in  pur- 
gatory, or  placed  them  in  some  one  of  his  numer- 
ous heavens,  he  means  that  a  description  of  the 
locality  and  its  general  significance  must  suffice 
for  the  reader,  who  is  left  to  particularize  as  he 
pleases.  Dante  thus  gives  food  and  suggestion  to 
other  poets  who  delight  in  making  the  Italian 
poet's  characters  tell  what  they  know.  Dante's 
"Sordello"  of  few  words  becomes  the  basis  of 
Browning's  most  exclusive  soul-study. 

In  making  a  comparison  of  Browning  and 
Shakespeare  in  the  matter  of  emphasizing  Soul  in 
poetry,  I  think  it  is  much  a  question  of  degree 
rather  than  kind.  Such  characters  as  Macbeth, 
Othello,  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  and  others  that  one 
ordinarily  familiar  with  the  great  English  drama- 
tist will  at  once  think  of,  represent  the  passions 
of  the  human  soul,  as  given  in  the  main  in  drama, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  gain  for  Shakespeare  the  ver- 
dict of  "prince"  among  men  who  have  essayed  to 
portray  the  human  heart.  The  process  and  prog- 
ress of  temptation  have  never  been  better  given  in 
prose  or  poetry  than  in  Macbeth.  The  inception 
and  development  of  jealousy  is  portrayed  by  a 


BROWNING  187 

master-hand  in  Othello.  The  evils  of  irresolution 
and  the  destruction  of  the  man  as  a  consequence 
are  seen  at  their  best  in  Hamlet.  The  gnawings 
of  grief  in  consequence  of  filial  ingratitude  reach 
their  supreme  presentation  in  King  Lear.  What 
more,  it  may  be  asked,  could  Shakespeare  have 
done  to  gain  the  place  of  the  poet,  by  preeminence, 
of  the  human  soul?  The  answer  is  not  so  difficult 
as  it  would  seem  to  be. 

Shakespeare  dealt  in  soul-analysis  as  a  feature 
of  his  work ;  Browning  gave  his  force  to  it.  What 
Shakespeare  could  have  done,  had  he  taken 
Browning's  course  instead  of  the  one  he  did  take, 
cannot  be  definitely  stated.  But  as  matters  stand 
the  creation  of  character  rather  than  the  analysis 
of  character  was  the  work  of  Shakespeare.  His 
supremacy  here  is  shown  by  the  way  he  has  dis- 
associated himself  from  the  characters  which  he 
has  created.  No  one  else  has  succeeded  in  this  as 
he  has.  Characters  seem  to  come  full-fledged  from 
his  brain,  with  their  definite  traits,  and  yet  with  so 
little  of  the  poet's  personality  about  them  as  to 
astound  us  even  to  this  day. 

When  we  come  nearer  to  the  Shakespearean 
characters  we  find  that  his  men  and  women  talk 
oftener  to  one  another  than  to  themselves.  People 
who  talk  to  others,  unless  under  very  rare  circum- 
stances, hide  rather  than  reveal  their  inner  thoughts 
and  nature.  Now  when  Shakespeare  gives  us  soli- 
loquy or  monologue,  we  have  his  characters  reveal- 
ing themselves  to  the  extent  of  the  poet's  power  of 


188  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

expression,  or  so  far  as  such  revelation  serves  the 
poet's  purpose.     When  the  King  in  Hamlet  says, 

O,  my  offense  is  rank  and  smells  to  heaven. 
It  has  the  primal  eldest  curse  upon't, 
A  brother's  murder; 

or  when  Richard  III.  says. 

With  God,  her  conscience,  and  these  bars  against  me. 
And  I  no  friends  to  back  my  suit  withal, 
But  the  plain  devil  and  dissembling  looks. 
And  yet  win  her  — 

we  have  men  speaking  for  the  moment  their  inner- 
most thouglits,  and  thus  portraying  their  wicked- 
ness and  wretchedness :  but  all  this  is  done  in 
Shakespeare  as  it  were  incidentally,  and  in  short 
speeches.  He  gives  us  glimpses  now  and  then  of 
the  inner  chambers  of  the  hearts  of  his  characters, 
but  this  is  exceptional.  The  brief  soliloquy,  to  suit 
dramatical  purposes,  is  indulged  in,  and  the  char- 
acters are  again  plunged  into  life  to  dissemble  as 
before. 

How  is  it  in  Browning's  characteristic  poems.? 
The  dramatic  is  incidental  and  the  monologue  is 
supreme.  His  characters  are  created  to  tell  all 
they  Tcnow  of  themselves.  They  are  talking  rather 
than  acting  characters.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
while  we  have  in  some  instances  the  poet's  men 
and  women  talking  to  others  rather  than  to  them- 
selves, yet  their  very  auditors  illustrate  the  fact  I 
am  contending  for,  namely,  that  Browning  means 
that   his   characters   shall   tell   the   truth   and   the 


BROWNING  189 

•whole  truth  as  they  feel  it  or  know  it.  In  no  in- 
stance has  he  more  definitely  determined  that  a  cre- 
ation of  his  should  reveal  herself  completely  than 
in  case  of  Pompilia.  But  Pompilia,  while  not  de- 
picted as  speaking  to  herself  as  does  the  Pope,  is 
on  her  deathbed,  and  with  but  a  few  hoiirs  to  live. 
That  very  fact  gives  her  the  chance  to  open  her 
soul  to  the  world.  Caponsacchi  tells  his  story  to 
the  Court;  but  he  is  so  thoroughly  carried  out  of 
himself  by  his  love  for  Pompilia  that  we  at  once 
have  no  fear  but  that  he  will  tell  the  whole  truth 
concerning  her  and  himself.  His  story  to  the 
Court  has  all  the  characteristics  of  a  monologue. 
When  Louis  Napoleon  is  represented  as  speaking 
the  truth  of  his  life,  he  has  a  congenial  young 
lady  as  his  sole  auditor,  but  she  becomes  an  audi- 
tor only  to  give  him  the  opportunity  to  pour  forth 
all  he  thinks  of  himself  both  good  and  bad.  Thus 
it  is  all  through  Browning's  poetry.  If  his  char- 
acters speak  to  others  rather  than  to  themselves, 
they  speak  to  auditors  who  have  become  inspira- 
tions to  them  to  tell  the  truth,  rather  than  hin- 
drances to  it.  The  auditors  are  those  to  whom  the 
Browning  characters  confess  rather  than  talk,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  wife  of  Andrea  del  Sarto,  or 
Bishop  Blougram's   dinner  companion. 

Shakespeare,  then,  creates  that  his  characters 
may  play  their  part  on  the  stage,  and  reveal  so 
much  of  their  real  selves  as  suits  his  purpose. 
Browning  either  brings  in  upon  the  stage  a  char- 
acter already  known,  or  one  he  has  created,  that 


190  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

he  may  have  the  man  reveal  himself  with  reference 
to  that  single  thing  which  the  poet  regarded  as 
the  only  end  worth  while  in  the  study  of  man — 
the  development  or  dwarfing  of  the  soul.  Shake- 
speare as  best  suited  to  tragedy  gives  oftenest  men 
and  women  going  to  the  bad:  Browning  delights 
in  the  soul's  aspirations,  and  seldom  fails  to  con- 
nect even  his  weaker  creations  with  the  immanent 
God.  It  is  Soul  in  his  characters,  not  characters 
as  such,  that  Browning  stresses. 

In  the  matter  of  stressing  the  soul,  Goethe  is 
perhaps  the  poet  who  makes  a  nearer  approach  to 
Browning  than  any  other.  The  most  casual  reader 
of  "Paracelsus"  must  think  of  "Faust,"  and 
"Paracelsus"  is  representative  of  as  much  Brown- 
ingism  as  any  of  the  poet's  productions,  with  per- 
haps, the  exception  of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book." 
We  find  our  minds  turning  to  Goethe's  "Iphigenia" 
when  we  strike  Browning's  "Balaustion."  We 
think  of  Goethe's  lyrics  when  we  read  Browning's, 
and  note  how  both  poets  made  Love  their  principal 
theme,  and  possess  the  power  of  leaving  a  definite 
and  living  idea  with  the  reader  by  means  of  a 
short  poem.  Both  poets  are  principally  concerned 
with  men  and  women,  subordinating  to  character- 
study  everything  else. 

The  similarity  that  I  have  indicated  between 
these  two  writers  is  due  in  part  to  the  age  in  which 
they  lived.  They  were  heirs  of  the  same  psychol- 
ogy. They  were  alike  idealists  in  philosophy. 
Goethe  was  a  follower  of  Romanticism  with  which 


BROWNING  191 

Kant  sympathized  so  much.  Browning  was  just 
as  firm  a  believer  in  "heart"  as  against  "head." 
There  was  a  pantheism,  of  an  allowable  kind,  that 
was  common  to  both. 

But  I  believe  something  more  than  the  age  in 
which  these  men  lived,  and  the  philosophers  with 
whom  they  sympathized,  combined  to  make  their 
poetry  similar.  They  temperamentally  sympa- 
thized with  much  the  same  things.  While  far 
apart  in  some  respects,  they  are  near  enough  to- 
gether constantly  to  remind  the  reader  the  one  of 
the  other. 

And  yet,  with  all  Goethe's  greatness, — such  as 
to  gain  for  him  the  name  of  being  one  among  the 
three  greatest  poets  that  have  ever  lived, — the 
contention  is  still  good,  I  think,  that  Browning 
surpasses  him  as  a  poet  of  the  soul. 

Coming  at  once  to  the  masterpieces  of  both, 
compare  "Faust"  with  "The  Ring  and  the  Book." 
They  agree  in  that  the  soul  plays  the  most  impor- 
tant part  in  the  two  poems.  They  agree  in  making 
evil  serve  as  a  kind  of  handmaid  of  good.  The 
bold  ground  is  taken  in  "Faust"  that  the  Devil 
may  so  far  overreach  himself  as  to  convert  a  man 
who  becomes  disgusted  with  evil,  even  where  the 
man  has  made  a  compact  with  evil.  The  Mar- 
garet of  "Faust"  calls  forth  quite  as  much  sym- 
pathy as  the  Pompilia  of  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book," — but  what  a  difference  in  the  two  women ! 
Both  are  uneducated — at  least  unlettered — and 
both  women  of  keen  intuitions:  but  Pompilia  is  a 


192  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

spirit,  while  Margaret  is  a  beautiful,  pious,  loving, 
but  erring  girl,  who  lays  all  on  the  altar  of  human 
love.  I  hesitate  not  to  affirm  that  Goethe  was  not 
capable  of  creating  such  a  character  as  Pompilia 
— so  free  from  a  sense  of  the  earthly.  It  is  prob- 
able that  Mrs.  Browning  sat  for  the  picture  in  all 
that  is  highest  and  best  in  Pompilia;  but  no  mat- 
ter, here  is  Browning  at  his  best  in  the  production 
of  woman  as  the  embodiment  of  a  great  soul — and 
nothing  in  Goethe's  poetry  can  equal  the  creation. 
In  the  character  of  Goethe's  hero  we  have  the 
one  human  being  that  the  poet  follows  through 
two  poems — the  first  and  second  parts  of  "Faust." 
He  is  to  these  books  what  Job  is  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment drama  of  that  name.  Everything  is  made 
subordinate  to  the  one  man.  Here  is  soul-study 
and  soul-analysis  to  the  ability  of  the  great  Ger- 
man poet  to  give  the  same.  It  is  no  secret  that 
Goethe  later  in  life  decided  to  "save"  Faust  rather 
than  let  the  traditional  story  of  Dr.  Faustus  be  his 
guide.  It  must  be  evident  to  a  discriminating 
reader  that  the  writer  of  "Faust"  is  embarrassed 
at  times  in  regard  to  the  course  he  had  best  pur- 
sue with  his  hero.  Finally  he  shows  him  as  having 
so  far  changed  from  being  entirely  selfish  and  self- 
seeking  as  to  have  a  scheme  for  the  betterment  of 
the  poor  of  the  land,  where  they  may  have  homes 
and  lands.  Faust  has  so  far  seen  what  it  is  to 
live — to  live  for  others  and  not  for  self — as  to  take 
a  joy  in  it  beyond  what  he  ever  felt  in  the  ways  of 
sin :  at  that  moment  he  dies,  and,  while  claimed  by 


BROWNING  193 

the  Devil  according  to  the  compact,  is  saved  so  as 
by  fire  on  the  general  principle  of  "fitness." 

How  much  of  the  inner  man  do  we  see  in 
Goethe's  hero?  A  glimpse  here  and  there,  and 
then  a  plunge  into  all  sorts  of  fantastic  revels  and 
weird  carnivals.  A  soliloquy  now  and  then,  repre- 
senting a  sad,  aspiring,  but  disappointed  man: 
then  the  world  with  its  hubbub,  and  Faust  taking 
part  in  it  all.  It  is  soul-development,  of  a  sort, 
but  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that  Goethe  is  taking 
strange  interest  in  scenes  which  have  little  in  them 
to  recommend  them  save  that  the  poet  likes  to  fol- 
low his  fancies.  The  suggestion  is  strong  that, 
while  showing  the  development  of  a  soul  amidst 
all  sorts  of  worldliness,  the  poet  is  taking  quite 
as  much  interest  in  the  worldliness  as  in  the  soul. 

"Faust"  is  nothing  like  as  earnest  as  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book."  Goethe  has  given  us  a  devil, 
Mephistopheles,  who  is  so  good-natured,  withal,  as 
to  suggest  that  he  never  meant  to  do  great  harm 
to  Faust.  If  evil  is  what  serious  men  think  it  is, 
then  Mephistopheles  is  a  mock  devil — a  mere  crea- 
tion, in  something  of  an  apologetic  mood  for  so 
much  slandering  of  the  Devil,  who  is  represented 
by  Goethe  as  after  all  not  so  bad  as  he  has  been 
made  out  to  be.  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  on 
the  other  hand,  is  in  dead  earnest.  Guido,  while  a 
man,  is  a  devil, — suggestive  of  the  Spirit  of  Evil 
as  revelation  represents  him.  Singular  indeed  that 
a  representation  of  the  devil  incarnate  in  Goethe 
should  be  far  outmatched  by  the  man,  Guido,  who 


194  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

has  simply  been  diabolized  by  sin.  As  a  soul-study, 
Guido  far  exceeds  Mephistopheles — if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  the  world  feels  Browning's  crea- 
tion to  be  both  a  true  and  an  earnest  one. 

What  in  Faust  can  compare  with  the  priest, 
Caponsacchi  .'^  Here,  too,  is  soul-awakening  and 
soul-development ;  but,  as  in  the  case  of  Pompilia, 
the  spirit  in  the  man  becomes  at  the  last  so  promi- 
nent as  to  make  the  reader  forget  all  else.  We  are 
studying  a  soul,  not  a  man, 

I  know  it  may  be  said  that  Goethe's  characters 
in  "Faust"  have  no  such  opportunity  to  reveal 
themselves  as  have  those  in  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book,"  as  all  in  the  latter  poem  are  either  on  the 
witness  stand  or  seen  in  the  secret  chambers  of 
their  homes,  and  have  the  secrets  of  their  souls  re- 
vealed because  the  conditions  of  the  poem  require 
this  to  be  done.  This  is  notably  so  in  the  case  of 
the  Pope,  who  reveals  as  much  of  Browning's 
real  philosophy,  as  even  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra.  But, 
the  choice  of  a  theme,  as  well  as  the  treatment  of 
it,  indicates  the  trend  of  a  poet's  mind.  When 
Goethe  would  give  us  a  soul-study  he  takes  a  man 
of  the  world,  plunges  him  into  the  revels  of  the 
world,  and  incidentally  shows  him  deteriorating  or 
spiritually  improving  under  it  all.  Goethe  wanted 
as  much  of  the  "world"  in  his  poem  as  he  could 
get,  for  he  loved  to  study  man  as  he  saw  him,  not 
necessarily  deeply,  but  as  a  passing  force.  "Faust" 
is  thus  full  of  suggestive  touches,  but  has  few  care- 
ful analyses. 


BROWNING  195 

Browning  indicates  his  trend  by  seizing  on  the 
idea  of  an  old  murder  case  in  Italy  to  make  a  study 
of  character,  under  such  conditions  as  will  best 
serve  to  bring  to  light  the  innermost  plans  and 
purposes  of  men  and  women.  We  have  the  souls 
laid  bare — because  Browning  wanted  a  theme  that 
would  admit  of  such  treatment.  When  we  lay 
aside  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  after  reading  it 
carefully,  we  feel  that  we  have  had  insight  into 
souls — we  feel  we  know  the  men  and  women  who 
have  acted  their  parts  in  the  play.  We  think  lit- 
tle of  the  world,  and  little  of  mere  externals:  we 
have  been  concerned  almost  exclusively  with  men 
and  women  shut  in  from  earth  and  in  such  ex- 
tremes of  life  as  to  show  us  what  human  hearts  are 
capable  of  under  these  extremes. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  Goethe  in  his 
treatment  of  love  is  much  more  concerned  with 
the  conventional  and  merely  human  passion,  based 
on  "elective  affinities,"  than  Browning.  Hermann 
and  Dorothea  are  happily  married  just  as  a  mod- 
ern novel  might  marry  them,  and  this  seems  to  be 
all  Goethe  had  in  view  in  the  writing  of  this  beau- 
tiful poem.  Browning  might  not  have  made  the 
course  of  love  run  so  smoothly,  but  he  would  out 
of  the  loves  of  the  two  interesting  people  have 
brought  forth  a  passion  which  had  far  less  of  earth 
about  it.  Browning's  Norbert  in  "In  a  Balcony" 
says,  when  about  to  face  death  with  his  loved  Con- 
stance, 

Men  have  died 
Trying  to  find  this  place,  which  we  have  found. 


196  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Browning's  people  in  love  more  often  miss  than 
find  their  prize;  but  only  to  find  something  in  hu- 
man love  higher  than  the  mere  earthly  possession 
of  it.  It  is  usually  connected  with  that  eternal 
principle  of  love  that  makes  this  life  seem  unsatis- 
factory. Witness  this  well-known  passage,  which 
probably  gives  Browning's  own  idea  of  what  love 
ought  to  be  in  its  higher  manifestations.  The 
dying  Pompilia,  in  her  testimony,  turns  to  the 
man,  in  her  thought,  whom  she  loves  with  all  her 
soul,  and  says: 

Marriage  on  earth  seems  such  a  counterfeit, 
Mere  imitation  of  the  inimitable: 
In  heaven  we  have  the  real  and  true  and  sure. 
'Tis  there  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given 
In  marriage,  but  are  as  the  angels:  right, 
Oh,  how  right  that  is,  how  Hke  Jesus  Christ 
To  say  that! 

Speaking  of  Caponsacchi's  soul,  and  her  attitude 
to  it,  she  says : 

He  is  still  here,  not  outside  with  the  world; 
Here,  here,  I  have  him  in  his  rightful  place! 

And  doubtless  Browning  intended  this  to  be  read 
under  the  supposition  that  Pompilia  pointed  to  her 
heart. 

Perhaps  nothing  by  way  of  quotation  would 
better  reveal  the  attitude  of  Goethe  to  love,  the 
earth,  and  experience,  than  his  introducion  to 
Faust,  where,  as  a  man  advanced  in  years,  he  calls 
on  the  "dim  forms"  that  pressed  about  him,  when 


BROWNING  197 

a  young  man,  to  resume  their  reign,  and,  as  they 
do,  the  poet  says: 

Shades  fondly  loved  appear,  their  train  attending, 
And  visions  fair  of  many  a  blissful  day; 

First-love  and  friendship  their  fond  accents  blending. 
Like  to  some  ancient,  half-expiring  lay: 

Sorrow  revives,  her  wail  of  accent  sending 
Back  o'er  Hfe's  devious,  labyrinthine  way. 

The  dear  ones  naming  who,  in  life's  fair  morn. 

By  Fate  beguiled,  from  my  embrace  were  torn. 

Taking  into  consideration  that  this  is  but  a  trans- 
lation, which  cannot  adequately  produce  the  orig- 
inal, still  the  thought  is  there,  and  reveals  the  cry 
of  the  man  over  lost  youth,  lost  power,  lost  friends, 
and  unfriendly  "Fate."  There  is  little  more  in  this 
than  making  capital  of  a  man's  bitter  experiences. 
This  is  the  conventional  way  of  treating  such  a 
theme  as  that  which  Goethe  is  handling. 

In  Browning's  "La  Saisiaz,"  written  under  the 
shadow  of  a  great  sorrow  and  calling  to  mind  a 
greater  one,  the  poet  asserts  his  "belief  in  Soul" 
and  is  "very  sure  of  God,"  while  his  personal  sor- 
rows, which  the  German  poet  would  bring  to  the 
front,  are  repressed,  and  the  soul  of  Browning, 
chastened  by  them,  is  seen  in  its  faith: 

I  have  lived  all  o'er  again 
That  last  pregnant  hour:  I  saved  it,  just  as  I  could 

save  a  root. 
Disinterred  for  reinterment  when  the  time  best  helps 

to  shoot. 
Life  is  stocked  with  germs  of  torpid  life;  but  may  I 

never  wake 


198  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Those  of  mine  whose  resurrection  could  not  be  with- 
out earthquake. 

Rest  such,  iinraised  forever!  Be  this,  sad  yet  sweet, 
the  sole 

Memory  evoked  from  slumber ! 

After  this  brief  and  superficial  survey  of  the 
three  poets,  who,  while  suggesting  Browning  in 
some  things,  yet  are  not,  though  as  great  as  the 
greatest,  his  equal  in  the  one  particular  of  which 
we  are  writing — it  may  be  a  more  direct  way  of 
dealing  with  the  matter  to  take  up  some  of  Brown- 
ing's more  prominent  poems,  and  instead  of  mak- 
ing elaborate  quotations,  which  would  extend  over 
pages,  show  the  ruling  ideas  of  these  poems. 

Browning's  earliest  production,  "Pauline,"  is  in 
the  form  of  a  confession,  and  tells  of  the  soul's 
awakening — a  revelation  of  high  ideals  and  low 
aims.  His  next  poem,  "Paracelsus,"  is  a  study  of 
a  soul  whose  passion  was  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge— this  poem  being  almost  exclusively  a  study 
of  soul-development,  though  in  the  face  of  the 
baffling  effect  of  the  mind's  limitations.  When  we 
come  to  "Sordello"  we  hit  upon  a  poem  that  is  by 
preeminence  a  study  of  the  soul — known  and 
asserted  to  be  such.  The  study,  however,  is  soul- 
development  as  against  baffling  environment.  In 
"Pippa  Passes"  we  have  much  beside  soul- 
study,  but  we  have  the  unmistakable  Browning 
idea — a  pure,  ingenuous  spirit  affecting  others 
for  good,  and  that  unconsciously.  In  "Christmas 
Eve,"    "    "Easter    Day,"    and    "La    Saisiaz,"    to 


BROWNING  199 

which  might  be  added  such  poems  as  "A  Pillar  at 
Sebzevar"  and  "A  Bean  Stripe,"  Browning  is 
wrestling  with  questions  that  concern  the  soul's 
immortality  and  also  the  problem  of  evil.  "In  an 
Album,"  "Fifine  at  the  Fair,"  "Red  Cotton  Night- 
cap Country,"  deal  with  kindred  themes — -all  bear- 
ing on  the  soul  as  especially  affected  by  the  evil  of 
unchastity.  These  are  soul-studies  as  truly  as  any- 
thing Browning  wrote.  "Saul"  and  "A  Death  in 
the  Desert"  are  two  poems  which  are  perhaps  the 
best  known  to  the  general  public,  and  both  are  so 
obviously  connected  with  the  spirit  of  man — the 
first  in  its  prophetic  power,  and  the  second  in  its 
intuitional — that  all  we  need  do  is  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact.  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  is  soul-philosophy. 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  simply  marks  the  climax 
in  soul-study — for  all  centers  there.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  after  reading  Browning  we  are  little 
concerned  with  the  mere  intellect  of  his  charac- 
ters. Some  discriminating  writer  has  said  of 
Christ  that  he  is  so  portrayed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  we  never  think  of  His  mere  thought- 
power  —  for  the  moral  is  so  overpoweringly 
ascendant.  This  is  in  its  measure  true  of 
Browning's  best  characters.  Goethe's  Mephisto- 
pheles  is  smart,  and  Faust  is  learned;  but  Guido  is 
had,  and  Caponsacchi  is  good. 

When  we  come  to  some  of  the  shorter  poems  of 
Browning,  such  as  "Andrea  del  Sarto,"  "Abt 
Vogler,"  "Francis  Furini" — we  see  soullessness, 
soulfulness,   and   the    relation   between   body   and 


200  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

soul;  and  they  arc  all  powerfully  depicted.  In 
"James  Lee's  Wife,"  "Bad  Dreams,"  "Any  Wife 
to  Any  Husband,"  and  a  number  of  such,  we  see 
soul-studies  under  the  shadow  of  alienation  between 
man  and  wife.  In  the  poems  which  might  be 
termed  Poems  of  Casuistry,  such  as  "Bishop 
Blougram,"  "Mr.  Sludge,"  "Aristophanes' 
Apology,"  "Prince  Hohensteil-Schwangau,"  "Fi- 
fine  at  the  Fair,"  and  a  host  of  such,  w^e  see  the 
moral  man  made  prominent.  We  have  apparent 
failure  claiming  success  as  God  sees  success ;  or 
success  as  men  see  it  acknowledged  to  be  failure 
and  the  man  excusing  himself;  or  downright  fail- 
ure, as  that  of  a  cheat,  known  to  men  and  acknowl- 
edged by  the  person  himself,  yet  the  person  per- 
mitted to  say  the  best  for  himself  that  can  be  said. 

It  may  be  surely  affirmed  that  no  poet  but 
Browning  has  written  so  much,  and  for  so  many 
years,  and  yet  by  means  of  the  single  thread, 
"Soul,"  has  enabled  us  to  string  together  all  he 
wrote. 

Although  I  have  given  myself  but  little  room  to 
speak  of  Browning's  subtlety,  this  is  the  feature  of 
his  soul-analysis  which  is  the  most  interesting.  He 
is  like  a  photographer  whose  genius  lies  in  posing 
his  subjects.  The  great  Camberwell  poet  loves  a 
striking  "situation,"  and  having  caught  one,  he 
seems  to  say  to  his  character:  "Stand  here  till  I 
take  you  as  you  are."  No  poet  furnishes  such 
stories  as  does  Browning.  Even  young  people  in 
school     enjoy     and     understand     "Stories     from 


BROWNING  201 

Browning."  The  reason  for  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  Browning — in  spite  of  his  obscure  style, 
his  interminable  digressions,  his  almost  madden- 
ing assumption  that  you  know  everything  he 
knows — always  has  a  good  story  to  tell.  The 
best  feature  of  the  story  usually  is  that  he  leaves 
his  readers  to  guess  what  the  poet  does  not 
utter.  He  is  constantly  delighting  the  sympa- 
thetic reader  by  leading  him  to  think  he  has 
seen  more  in  Browning  than  the  poet  himself  saw 
in  what  he  wrote, — and  herein  is  one  feature  of  his 
subtlety.  The  obscure  and  enigmatical  "Childe 
Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came"  has  been  inter- 
preted in  all  conceivable  ways.  One  who  for  the 
first  time  carefully  studies  it,  and  who  has  some 
imagination,  will  join  the  great  procession  and 
confidently  offer  a  "solution" — only  to  find  out 
usually  that  he  has  been  already  anticipated.  It 
is  said  that  an  enthusiastic  reader  of  Browning 
once  asked  the  poet  whether  Childe  Roland  was  not 
meant  to  teach  a  lesson  on  "Aspiration,"  such  as 
"Excelsior"  taught:  the  reply  was,  "O  yes,  some- 
thing of  that  sort."  This  is  about  all  the  curious 
questioner  could  learn  from  the  only  man  who 
could  say  what  was  meant. 

In  "Pippa  Passes"  subtlety  runs  through  the 
whole  poem.  The  touch  of  the  innocent  girl,  by 
means  of  song,  enforced  by  the  Spirit  of  God,, 
plays  upon  conscience  at  critical  moments  so  as  to 
turn  men  and  women  from  criminal  purposes  to- 
courageous  action, — yet  the  singer  is  all  uncon- 


202  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

scious  of  what  she  is  doing.  She,  like  the  Baptist, 
is  but  a  "voice"  in  the  wilderness  of  sinful  con- 
spiracies and  self-indulgence.  Some  of  the  touches 
in  this  poem  are  simply  inimitable. 

Of  the  great  religious  poems  of  Browning, 
"Saul"  and  "A  Death  in  the  Desert"  are  best 
known.  We  feel  the  thrill  almost  of  prophecy 
itself  as  we  glide  with  David  in  his  song  from  mere 
descriptions  of  natural  scenes  to  deeds  of  heroic 
men,  then  on  to  love,  and  to  the  beauty  and  sig- 
nificance of  sacrifice  as  illustrated  in  the  priestly 
functions  of  the  former  days — till  finally  the  songs 
selected  by  the  singer  have  done  their  work,  and 
the  king  has  come  to  himself;  but  a  spirit  David 
himself  did  not  anticipate  has  caught  him,  and  his 
voice  and  harp  are  no  longer  his  own,  but  utter  the 
hitherto  unuttered  and  tell  in  a  prophetic  outburst 
of  the  incarnation  of  Christ. 

In  "A  Death  in  the  Desert,"  where  a  rude  Bac- 
trlan  makes  pretense  to  graze  a  goat,  yet  is  really 
keeping  watch  at  the  cave's  mouth  to  give  the 
alarm  in  case  of  surprise,  we  find  at  the  close  of  the 
poem  these  words,  which,  taking  in  their  connec- 
tion, have  sent  cold  chills  over  me  as  though  from 
a  shower  bath— all  from  sheer  delight  at  the  poet's 
subtlety.  Speaking  of  those  who  were  present 
when  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  died  (as  the 
situation  portrays).  Browning  says: 

Valens  is  lost,  I  know  not  of  his  trace ; 
The  Bactrian  was  but  a  wild  childish  man, 
And  could  not  write  nor  speak,  but  only  loved. 


BROWNING  203 

If  the  reader  w  ho  follows  the  story  to  this  point 
does  not  perceive  the  master-touch  in  the  last  line 
of  the  above  quotation,  his  case  is  hopeless,  so  far 
as  any  appreciation  of  Browning  goes. 

In  "Christmas  Eve,"  "Easter  Day,"  and  "La 
Saisiaz,"  the  thought  is  as  subtle  as  it  is  high  and 
purely  religious.  No  mere  quotations  can  do  jus- 
tice to  these  poems. 

In  such  short  but  significant  poems  as  "My  Last 
Duchess"  and  "The  Last  Ride  Together,"  we  see 
depths  which  remind  one  of  looking  into  the  bosom 
of  a  Swiss  lake — so  deep  yet  so  clear.  When  in 
the  former  poem  the  nobleman  tells  one,  who  is 
looking  with  him  at  his  dead  wife's  portrait,  that 
because  the  Duchess  was  wont  to  smile  on  everybody 
who  did  her  a  kindness,  he  (the  Duke)  "gave  com- 
mands," and  "then  all  smile  ceased" — Browning 
does  not  say  that  the  woman  died  of  a  broken 
heart,  but  leaves  the  sympathetic  reader  to  fill  that 
out. 

In  "The  Last  Ride  Together"  the  humorous  and 
pathetic  combine,  yet  an  impression  is  left  that  is 
most  pleasing.  A  rejected  lover  is  riding  for  the 
last  time  with  the  lady  who  prefers  another,  but 
has  granted  to  the  unfortunate  one  this  favor. 
Instead  of  brooding  over  his  fate,  the  rejected 
man  revels  in  the  thought  of  his  present  bliss,  even 
to  the  suggestion  that  the  world  might  come  to  an 
end  before  the  ride  is  over  and  he  will  be  found 
with  the  woman  of  his  heart. 

In    "Abt    Vogler"    and    "Andrea    del    Sarto," 


204  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

Browning  touches  the  pathetic  in  human  expe- 
rience, as  it  has  rarely  been  touched.  In  the  first 
poem,  where  the  organist  has,  while  extemporizing 
on  his  instrument,  been  caught  up  into  the  "third 
heaven,"  he  wonders  if  what  he  has  produced  can 
ever  be  repeated,  the  moralizing  thereon  is  as  thril- 
ling as  it  is  subtle : 

All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall 
exist ; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good, 
nor  power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives   for 
the  melodist, 
When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  the  hour. 

The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth 
too  hard, 
The  passion  that  left  the    ground  to  lose  itself  in 
the  sky. 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard; 
Enough  that  He    heard  it  once;    we  shall  hear  it 
by  and  by. 

Andrea  del  Sarto  is  a  powerful  presentation  of 
a  highly  gifted  man,  an  artist,  deteriorating  under 
the  influence  of  a  woman  who  is  not  worthy  of  his 
love,  and  whom  he  loves  unworthily.  His  paint- 
ings are  lacking  in  "soul,"  and  he  knows  it  and  be- 
moans it,  yet  hints  that  had  he  loved  as  he  should 
have  loved,  and  had  his  wife  been  what  she  might 
have  been,  Raphael  himself  would  not  have  been 
the  now  "soulless"  painter's  match. 

I  close  with  some  mention  of  the  masterpiece 


BROWNING  205 

of  the  poet,  "The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Here 
nothing  less  than  the  whole  story  of  the  murder, 
the  scenes  painted  so  vividly,  and  the  charac- 
ters brought  out  so  sympathetically,  could  do  jus- 
tice to  the  poem.  But  a  scene  or  two  at  certain 
critical  points  in  the  great  poem  must  suffice. 

A  priest,  Caponsacchi,  has  been  induced  to  do 
the  unusual  and  unheard-of  thing — ^namely,  to 
steal  away  from  a  town  in  Italy  the  ill-treated  wife 
of  a  certain  nobleman,  Guido,  and  carry  her  for 
safety  to  Rome,  in  a  closed  carriage.  The  two  are 
overtaken  on  the  way,  and  the  infuriated  husband 
thinks  murder  too  good  for  the  guilty  parties. 
The  whole  story  hangs  on  the  testimony  given  by 
the  parties  concerned,  ill  the  court.  The  priest, 
evidently  as  honest  as  he  is  pure,  belongs  to  that 
class  so  often  selected  as  Browning's  heroes  and 
heroines — the  uncalculating  people.  He  has 
simply  acted,  out  of  a  good  heart,  where  a  case  of 
pressing  need  came  to  his  attention.  But,  in  carry- 
ing out  the  plan,  he  has  had  revelations  of  human 
nature  such  as  he  never  dreamed  of:  he  has  expe- 
rienced the  soul's  awakening.  In  telling  his  ex- 
perience to  the  court,  whose  incredulity  can  be  felt, 
so  vivid  is  the  scene  portrayed — his  honesty  and 
his  love  for  the  woman,  Pompilia,  are  not  more 
plain  than  the  priest's  awkward  attempt  to  hide 
the  love  he  feels.  He  thinks  the  delight  he  had 
while  sitting  by  her  side  in  the  carriage,  as  they 
rode  all  through  the  night  together,  must  have 
been  similar  to  what  two  saints  might  experience 


206  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

who  side  by  side,  as  martyrs,  await  the  signal  for 
the  first  resurrection.  Perhaps  something  in  the 
looks  of  the  men  before  him  led  the  priest  to  add: 

You  know  this  is  not  love,  Sirs  —  it  is  faith 
The  feeling  that  there's  God,  he  reigns  and  rules 
Out  of  this  low  world:  that  is  all;  no  harm! 

Then  with  unapproachable  pathos  and  humor 
combined  (humor  excited  at  the  ill-concealed  feel- 
ings of  the  priest),  the  brave  fellow  is  made  to 
say: 

At  times  she  drew  a  soft  sigh — music  seemed 
Always  to  hover  just  above  her  lips. 
Nor  settle,  —  break  a  silence^music  too. 

The  man  ^nHHBMHBMMIf^  as  all  know  who  have 
experienced  the  symptoms.  In  fact,  the  entire 
story  of  Caponsacchi  is  entrancing,  in  its  hints, 
half -confessions,  glimpses  into  depths  of  character, 
unconscious  unveiling  of  innermost  thoughts — till 
the  reader  is  led  to  ask  if  ever  the  human  heart 
were  so  dissected. 

If  Caponsacchi's  testimony  to  the  court  is  fasci- 
nating, the  confession  of  the  dying  Pompilia  is 
thrilling.  She  does  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge 
that  in  a  pure  and  unearthly  sense  she  loves  Capon- 
sacchi. Her  account  of  the  memorable  ride  to 
Rome  has  the  unmistakable  woman's  touch  about 
it,  and  Browning  has  thrown  into  Pompilia's  story 
all  that  his  great  genius  and  his  knowledge  of  a 
woman's  way  of  looking  at  things  gave  him  ability 
to  put  into  language.     If  what  I  am  writing  inter- 


BROWNING  a07 

ests  at  all  the  reader  who  has  not  read  "The  Ring 
and  tlie  Book,"  he  will  take  up  Pompilia's  story 
and  see  for  himself  its  significance:  for  those  who 
have  read  the  whole  sympathetically,  there  is  no 
need  that  I  give  more  than  one  quotation: 

Oh,  to  have  Caponsacchi  for  my  guide ! 
Ever  the  face  upturned  to  mine,  the  hand 
Holding  my  hand  across  the  world,  —  a  sense 
That  reads,  as  only  such  can  read,  the  mark 
God  sets  on  woman,  signifying  so 
She  should  —  shall  peradventure  —  be  divine ; 

Yet  'ware,  the  while,  how  weakness  mars  the  print 
And  makes  confusion,  leaves  the  thing  men  see  — 
Not  this  man  sees  —  who  from  his  soul  rewrites 
The  obliterated  charter,  —  love  and  strength 
Mending  what's  marred. 

Here  an  unlettered  girl,  with  keenest  intuitions, 
born  of  a  pure  soul,  and  those  intuitions  aroused 
to  their  highest  by  their  possessor  being  on  the 
border  land  of  the  spirit-world,  pours  forth  words 
that  partake  of  philosophy  and  prophecy,  and 
voice  the  yearnings  of  many  an  aspiring  soul,  that 
would  give  some  expression  to  the  difference  be- 
tween what  we  are  and  what  we  would  be.  Here, 
too,  we  see  the  joy  such  souls  take  in  those  choice 
spirits  who  like  Christ  see  in  "Simon,  son  of  Jo- 
nas," the  Peter  (Rock)  of  the  future.  Pompilia 
delights  in  the  rare  insight  that  can  see  "the  mark 
God  sets  on  woman" ;  but  Caponsacchi  docs  more — 
he  "rewrites  the  obliterated,"  and  sees  the  perfect 
in  the  now  imperfect.     Doubtless  Elizabeth  Bar- 


208  SEEKERS  AFTER  SOUL 

rett  is  here  depicted;  no  matter — not  in  this  one 
extract  only,  but  in  Pompilia's  whole  story,  we  find 
such  turns  in  thought,  such  unexpected  and  thril- 
ling touches  as  to  lead  us  to  affirm  that  no  man  has 
yet  ever  excelled  Browning  in  the  subtlety  and 
power  which  he  asserted  the  claims  and  the  reality 
of  the  human  soul. 


_  .■■i|i;li"iilii'iiJlliiiill  111 
3  1158  00840  3585 


(] 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001076  311    8 


